The data is starting to emerge around the impacts on children following the pandemic.
Recently the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists published a hard-hitting document outlining the struggles of speech and language services (mostly aimed at NHS provision) following the lockdowns.
Most notable were the following facts:
🟠 Since the pandemic, more children and young people are presenting to SALT services with new speech, language and communication needs than before the pandemic.
🟠 Children and young people with unsupported SLCN continue to be at increased risk of:
🔺Low literacy and numeracy skills
🔺Poor mental health
🔺Exclusion from school
🔺Involvement in the criminal justice system
🟠 Disadvantaged and vulnerable children are the most affected.
🟠 Some areas are seeing more than 50% of children starting school with delayed language or other SLCN.
🟠 Speech and Language Therapists are reporting significantly high numbers of children who missed out on opportunities for interaction and communication, resulting in delayed language and social communication skills.
🟠 Demands are so high in some areas that they are only able to offer advice instead of therapy or in-depth assessments.
🟠 Waiting times for assessment are longer than ever before.
This leads to increased pressure on education and childcare settings where professionals are required to identify and meet the needs of the children.
The clearest issue for me, as an experienced Speech and Language Therapist, is that not all of these children actually need to be seen by SALT.
Many children who are seen will not be eligible for therapy sessions and will receive advice and perhaps a programme of targets to work on.
This gets sent home and to school or preschool but there’s no training and information on how to actually work on those targets.
That’s why I created my courses. For education professionals to weave fun speech and language interventions into your daily classroom life, using the checklists and screeners to identify specific areas of need and highlight targets, implementing effective strategies to improve quality of teaching and learning.
Making your working lives a little easier, reducing the pressure a little more.
Let’s have a quick phone call to talk about the children in your setting and which of my courses would be best for you. You can book a call here.
You can also see the range of courses and training packages for individuals and teams on the online courses page.
Beth xx