As an early years professional, are you fed up with referrals going nowhere fast?
You've been monitoring a child's language and communication skills for a while and you're still concerned.
You've written a referral but it's taking ages.
Waiting lists are so long and you want to do something to promote the language and communication skills of the children in your early years setting.
It's a familiar story, so let me tell you about Teddy.
Teddy is 3 but he hasn’t said any words yet.
He attends his preschool all day, every day.
He participates in some of the activities but doesn’t show much of an interest in the other children, he’s happy to be in his own company.
Sometimes he runs, sometimes he screeches, sometimes he sits under the table in the corner.
The staff need to record his development but there’s not much to show.
They need to do some work with him but can’t work out where to start.
They referred him to Speech & Language 3 months ago and he’s also on the list for the area SENCo.
The referrals are getting nowhere fast.
Teddy’s preschool signed up their team to my Early Years Training Package.
It contains 6 different short video-based courses on the following topics:
SLCN Speech, Language and Communication Needs
Speech Sounds
Early Years Speech & Language
Supporting Memory & Processing Skills
Supporting Vocabulary and Word Finding Skills
Stammering & Stuttering
Plus, there are loads of resources from eBooks to checklists and printable handouts included in the training package too.
The staff who work in Teddy’s room completed the Early Years Speech & Language course over one week.
It’s only 4 hours long and full of short videos with demonstrations.
Each day they chose a new activity to do and were able to include some of the other children too.
They started to see progress quite quickly.
Teddy became interested in the activities and started copying some associative noises (e.g. brrm noises for cars). He began showing an interest in the other children too.
Staff in the other rooms at preschool have been able to do the Early Years Speech & Language course too, and the Speech Sounds one. They will look at vocabulary skills next term and complete that course then.
The preschool signed up 16 members of staff to the package for the one annual price. Everyone had their own login via email and were able to choose which courses they wanted to do first, completing them at their own pace.
The staff were feeling a lot more confident and had shown Teddy’s parents what they’ve been doing so that his family can do some of the games at home too.
Things are less stressful and a lot more fun.
You can promote communication and language skills in your early years setting by providing high-quality support, interventions and education for children using the skills, knowledge and activities from the Early Years Training Package. Find out more here: https://www.thespeechandlanguagegarden.com/early-years-training-package
Let me know if you have any questions or if you'd like to have a quick chat over the phone, you can book a call on my contact page here.
Beth Morrant
Highly Specialist Speech & Language Therapist MSc BA CertMRCSLT MASLTIP
P.S. If you are a parent and you're frustrated with referrals getting you nowhere, check out my Helping Your Child to Talk course to get your little one chattering away in less than 6 weeks.
