Meeting Special Needs: A practical guide to support children with Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN)

Title page

Meeting special needs

a practical guide to support children with Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN)

by Mary Mountstephen

Copyright page

Originally published by Practical Pre-School Books, A Division of MA Education Ltd, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, Herne Hill, London, SE24 0PB Tel. 020 7738 5454

© MA Education Ltd 2010

www.practicalpreschoolbooks.com

2012 digital version by Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Illustrations by Cathy Hughes. Front cover image © iStockphoto.com/Rosemarie Gearhart

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Acknowledgements

To my family with love and thanks for their support and patience.

Also, with grateful thanks to Pippa Counsell, Speech, Language and Communication Therapist and Marlene Rattigan for her lovely ‘kidz-fiz-biz’ activities.

Note on Terms used in the book

Throughout this book the term practitioners is used to include all play workers, child minders and childcare workers.

The term ‘setting’ applies to wherever the play/childcare takes place.

The terms ‘parent/carer are used interchangeably in most contexts as are the terms he/his/she/hers.

The term ‘special educational needs’ has a legal definition. Children with special educational needs all have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age. These children may need extra or different help from that given to other children of the same age’. (DCSF 2008)

The term Speech, Language and Communication Needs will be referred to by its abbreviation: SLCN

Preface

Erin

Erin is just two years old and communicates very little to anyone in the setting, although her parents say she talks with them in the home. In the setting, she needs to concentrate very hard to follow spoken language and this is difficult if there is background noise and the instructions are not being given individually to her.

Group activities present problems for her if she is struggling to follow what is going on and can’t take part. Her mother says things are better if she is encouraged to feel relaxed, as when she becomes anxious or withdrawn, her communication difficulties will feel and appear more pronounced.

When she is at home or in her nursery, Erin needs sensitive encouragement to ask and answer questions with an adult or another child.

An adult might say: ‘I never know what Erin wants, she just points at things and cries when we don’t understand her. She’s always playing on her own’.

Erin might be feeling: frustrated, angry, emotional and frightened.

Her parent says: ‘She’s so shy; she never speaks to anyone… I just want to stop her clinging to me all the time’.

The focus of this book is on helping you to identify what it is that Erin, for example, is finding hard to do and then to use your observations and discussions to find ways of supporting her so that she can flourish and thrive to the best of her ability. If she can be prevented from experiencing repeated failure, she is more likely to develop resilience and the self-confidence to try new activities. We know that the early years are a very important time for physical, emotional, intellectual and social development, and both positive and negative experiences can have a profound influence on later learning and development.

This guide is not intended to cover all aspects of these difficulties, but it will give you a greater understanding of how speech, language and communication develop, as well as offering guidelines for support and signposts to further reading, professional development and useful resources.