We are part of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Service (SENDSS).
We are a team of:
- Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapists
- Speech and Language Therapy Assistants (Technical Instructors)
- Communication Advisory Teachers
What we do:
Our team specialises in Speech, Language, and Communication Needs (SLCN). We work collaboratively and flexibly with settings to:
- Promote an awareness of SLCN and its impact on emotional development and learning
- Provide support and advice at all levels: universal, targeted and specialist
- Provide support and advice across primary and secondary schools through training, coaching and mentoring (online and face-to-face)
- Develop skills in identification of SLCN
- Provide teaching and learning to meet identified language and communication needs, with a focus on supporting SEMH and well-being
- Support and promote pupil voice
- Support and promote parent/carer voice
- Support and enhance transition processes between Key Stages and preparing for adulthood
How we might work with your setting:
- Support you as you audit how your school meets the needs of children and young people with SLCN
- Solution-focussed discussion to develop a bespoke action plan with you
- Signposting you to the relevant parts of our online tool kit of resources
- Working with individual children and young people/students and small targeted groups
- Coaching and mentoring for staff
- Delivering training around your schools needs
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
AAC supports or replaces speech or writing for communication. AAC can take the form of low-tech communication systems such as:
- Pen and paper
- Objects
- Signing
- Books with pictures or symbols
High-tech communication systems need some sort of power to work. Computers and tablets that convert text, pictures or symbols to speech fit into this category.
NHS - Children's speech and language therapy
Speech and language therapists are registered allied health professionals (a trained health professional who is not a doctor or nurse). Our service works with children and young people aged 0 to 19 with speech, language and communication needs in clinics, homes, and educational settings across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We work directly with children and young people alongside their key communication partners such as parents, carers, and educational staff.
We help children and young people:
- communicate to the best of their ability
- and their communication partners understand their strengths and needs
- to feel confident supporting their speech and language differences and difficulties.
We want all children and young people, and their families to have timely and easily accessible support that is neurodiversity affirming and compassionate.
Children and young people with speech, language and communication needs may have difficulties with:
- understanding what is said to them
- using spoken language
- talking clearly (saying speech sounds)
- stammering
- using language to interact with other people
Speech and language therapists also provide support for children and young people with eating and drinking difficulties. These may include difficulties with:
- sucking and swallowing
- coughing on drinks, or other signs of aspirating fluids into the airway and lungs
- difficulties developing chewing skills
- coughing or choking on food, or other signs of aspirating food into the airway and lungs
The service follows an episodes of care model. This means we see children and young people when they need us the most and have a specific goal they need the support of a speech and language therapist to work towards. We then step back when communication partners have the confidence and skills to meet that goal and communication is well supported.
The best way to support communication is through joint working and having communication support in the child’s everyday environment. This means we require active participation when working with us.
Our team works with children and young people aged 4 to 16 with a diagnosis of autism who are on roll at a school in Cornwall.
Our vision is that:
- Cornwall supports autistic children and young people to achieve positive outcomes.
- We inspire, challenge and advise our partners to find shared solutions.
- Children, young people and their families can access services which meet their needs.
Most of our work promotes the inclusion of autistic young people in an educational setting. This is done through work in both the home and at school. Professionals within the Autism Team will:
- Support multi-agency working
- Promote a joint problem-solving approach
- Promote interventions that are evidence-based