Getting it right for every child
The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 is about improving the wellbeing of children and young people in Scotland.
If it is deemed that something could be getting in the way of a child’s wellbeing then a Team Around the Child (TAC) meeting may be arranged to identify appropriate means of support.
The child and parent/carers, along with agency representatives may identify that a block of targeted speech and language support is a positive step forward during a TAC discussion.
This is where East Ayrshire Support Team (EAST) staff can contribute to a programme of support either as a standalone intervention or as a collaborative intervention with input from EAST, Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and a school classroom assistant.
Support for speech and language
The EAST team has worked in partnership with colleagues from Ayrshire & Arran Speech and Language Therapy to support pupils with a phonological disorder.
Two interventions have been developed:
- A first tier intervention to specifically address phonological awareness skills delivered by a member of EAST staff. This may be as a 1:1 intervention or as part of a small group.
- A more intensive collaborative model with a bespoke package of support delivered by a speech and language therapist, an EAST teacher and a school’s classroom assistant.
Why your child has been identified
Your child may have been identified by the Speech and Language Therapy Service and/or EAST and school personnel as someone who would benefit from a phonological awareness intervention as an introduction to or to run alongside speech and language therapy sessions.
Your child may have been identified by the Speech and Language Therapy Service as someone who would benefit from intensive support to address his/her needs due to a phonological disorder.
What it involves
The phonological awareness intervention is provided once or twice a week over a term. Your child will be assessed and a tailored programme of work will be created.
The collaborative model is more intensive with four sessions weekly provided by a speech therapist, an EAST teacher and a classroom assistant. The speech therapist will lead this intervention and will identify speech sounds for your child to work on.
Benefits for your child
Research shows that phonological awareness can be a reliable predictor of literacy development. Weak phonological skills can be a primary cause of reading and spelling difficulties.
The main aim of the phonological awareness intervention is to address any gaps in order to give your child the best possible outcome with early literacy skills.
Children who have been part of the collaborative model, to date, have all demonstrated an improvement in speech intelligibility. Parents noted this improvement across three groups of listeners: parents, familiar adults and non-familiar adults.
How you can help
Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear, identify and use all sounds of language.
if your child is selected for the phonological awareness intervention, you can help at home by:
- playing ‘I spy’ games
- reciting nursery rhymes
- sharing rhyming stories, for example, books by Julia Donaldson
- clapping out syllables (beats) in words, for example, tel-e-vi-sion
- playing rhyming-based games
- spelling out simple words for your child to guess, for example, b-u-s, c-a-t, s-i-x
If your child is selected for the more intensive support, a home-school diary will be provided to inform you of the focus of work undertaken and will detail any homework required. This intervention will focus more on individual speech sounds and you will be guided on how to best support at home.
Further information
If you would like further information, please contact your child’s school in the first instance.