Pre-school Children
Your local Startwell Team can provide you with advice about how to support speech, language and communication needs. helpful tips/videos can be found at Families - Greater Manchester Combined Authority
Speech and language therapists are available to offer support and advice in your local family hubs. Visit your local Family Hub or library to find out more about the support in your local area for SLCN.
Health Visitor checks around12 months and 2 years of age are an opportunity to discuss any concerns about your child’s development. If any support for speech language and or communication is needed this will be discussed with you.
This may include:
- Discussions of online support ideas.
- Visits at your home to support you with speech language and communication through a resource called the big book of ideas which helps language development.
- An invitation to a group session
- A Programme called iBASIS which support interaction between babies and their parent / carer
- Seeing a speech and language therapist for more assessment or support.
School Age Children:
Every Stockport maintained school has a link speech and language therapist (SALT) who visits the school. The link SALT works with the staff in school to create classrooms that support speech and language development. They ensure that the school has the right skills and training / tools in place to identify any speech and language needs early and to provide appropriate strategies and support across the school to overcome these needs.
The link SALT can provide advice, help set up group intervention or see children directly depending on the needs.
You can ask your school to discuss your child with the link SALT if you have any concerns.
If your child has a Stockport GP but is attending a school outside Stockport Local Authority or an Independent/Private School, we will discuss with your child’s school, the universal and targeted approaches they have in place and agree next steps with them.
If your child is home educated please contact the speech and language therapy admin team on CTSAdmin@stockport.nhs.uk to agree how we can support you and your child.
What does the SALT actually do?
The SALT will work with the local area / setting / school to:
- Share top tips for talking / speech language and communication development
- Develop speech language and communication strategies and language rich environments in groups / settings / schools.
- Offer training in local areas to support development of speech/ language / communication
- Provide advice to ensure appropriate interventions are available to support specific speech / language and communication skills by setting / school staff
- Provide advice to support individualised programmes to develop speech / language and communication skills which setting staff / schools will follow
- Provide advice and support to parents /carers
- Ensure that screening tools are in place so children receive any help they need as early as possible.
- Attend Family Hub drop in advice sessions for parents / carers.
The SALT may provide direct support / intervention / local training sessions for children if more help is needed. This could be:
- In a group
- Individual Therapy, including parent / child interaction therapy
- Parents may be invited to training sessions / online training to help them support their child’s needs. This could include:
- Makaton Training – use of signs and symbols to support language and speech development
- Visual Approaches to support Autism
- SALT strategies for children with speech language and communication needs.
- Training about Selective Mutism
- Training about developmental Language Disorders.
For any queries or more information about training opportunities offered by the service to empower parents / carers through training please email as per the training email above.
For More Information:
If you have more general questions about supporting your child’s speech language and communication, in the first instance where possible, please talk to your child’s health visitor, early years setting or school.
If you have specific questions about specialist support for your school age child please contact your child’s link therapist via the school.
Alternatively contact us on the details above. |