Speech and Language Therapy at Whitefield

Introduction

Speech and Language Therapists are trained to assess speech, language and communication difficulties in people of all ages to enable them to communicate, whether this be through body language, behaviour, signs, gestures, objects, photos, visual symbols or spoken words. Speech and Language Therapists also work with people who have difficulties with eating and drinking, ensuring safe and comfortable mealtimes.

Speech and Language Therapy at Whitefield

At Whitefield, our aim is to support all students to develop their functional communication, this includes the skills to effectively communicate their wants and needs, and to share their thoughts and feelings with others. We also support students to develop their social interaction skills so that they can develop positive and meaningful relationships with those around them.

Speech and language therapy will look different for each student based on their individual strengths and needs so each child reaches their communicative potential.

As part of our work at Whitefield, the speech and language therapy team will:

• Work closely with your child’s class team to ensure all recommendations and strategies are embedded throughout the school day.
• Assess the communication skill of all students known to speech and language therapy yearly and provide a written summary of their communication skills, as well as set targets and outline recommendations to develop your child’s communication skills.
• Review targets with your child’s class team to ensure progress is made and to troubleshoot with the class team.
• Provide training and modelling to your child’s class team to support implementation of recommendations, this could be as part of a group or one to one with your child and a staff member e.g. when introducing new Augmentative and Alternative Communication
• Offer training and modelling to parents / carers to support the development of communication skills at home.
• On request, attend Annual Review meetings where there is a specific requirement for our input e.g. safe guarding concerns or introduction of a new method of communication.
• Assess and support students who have difficulties with mealtimes.

If you have concerns regarding your child’s communication skills or their eating and drinking, please discuss these with your child’s class team, or contact us directly on: SALT@Whitefield.Waltham.Sch.UK