The Toddler Testing Debate - Wendy Lee, Professional Director

There was a piece in The Times earlier in the week describing how a test done in the US with toddlers could predict problems in literacy. As a speech and language therapist, my reaction is – well of course it does!

In my gut I know this to be true, though we also have research evidence of the importance of vocabulary and of language levels in young children being predictors of how children manage at school.

But we do get very worried when we hear the word ‘testing’ and ‘toddlers’ in the same sentence - and understandably so. Recently we saw headlines expressing concerns about the testing of toddlers as part of the new Early Years Foundation Stage and Healthy Child Programme.

I guess we imagine the worst, rows of babies and toddlers being put through their paces to spot those who don’t quite make the grade. No one wants that.

I would be the first to argue against ‘hot housing’ children, taking away their childhood, not allowing them to play, have fun and be individuals and pushing them into formal teaching but this is not about testing in that way.

This is about knowing that language and communication is important to us all! As parents, we want our children to be good at talking. We value communication.

As professionals, we know communication is more than just talking. It is the vehicle for learning, it is the flip side of reading and writing, it is necessary to regulate our behavior, to organise our thinking, to build relationships and to work and live with others.

I’ve worked as a speech and language therapist for more years than I would care to admit. I have met every kind of teacher, parent and professional – those who are desperately worried that their child cannot say ‘r’ at age 4 (this is fine) and those who are OK with the fact their child can’t put 3 words together at 4 (this is not fine – and no, he won’t just catch up, though many will quote exceptions to the rule – Einstein for example).

I have also seen what happens when children with poor language are not picked up early. Some children with potential to catch up don’t, others who have long term language needs end up misunderstood or misdiagnosed. I have shared frustration with parents and colleagues, working with older children seen as ‘low ability’ with poor reading, poor behavior, no confidence… knowing had they been picked up at age two or three, life would look and feel very different.

Surely, we want to avoid this scenario. We can ‘test’ children when they are young; it can be fun, it just looks like playing – or at least that is how children and many parents see it!

We can pick out those children who, with support at the right time, can catch up. We can also pick up those with longer term needs who can be understood by adults that work with them, so they can be supported to learn and progress in the best way to suit their needs.

The bigger fight - Anita Kerwin-Nye, Director

We spend our days raising the profile of speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). We work on solutions to ensure earlier identification and we battle for more support for children who struggle. We win some (quite a lot); we lose some (too many) and we continue to fight the good fight.

But this morning it occurred that there is a bigger fight at hand. As unemployment figures rise, as young people are demonised in the media as illiterate yobs and as the language of government moves towards “ the disabled and the tax payers” as if they were two polarised groups that never overlap what world are we sending the young people we work with into?

Of course the work that we’re doing means that they enter that world with the best possible chance and the best possible skills and, of course, many young people who struggle to communicate will end up in wonderful jobs, pursuing their careers and interests with great outcomes. But we run the risk of a generation adrift – where communication skills matter more than ever and those who struggle have their life chances limited by bad policy, a judgemental media and employers who do not see the talent that they are missing out on.

It’s not all doom and gloom – employers like the wonderful Co-Op in Nottinghamshire, winner of our Employer Shine a Light Award are doing wonderful work providing meaningful opportunities for young people with SLCN. Charities like SCOPE and MENCAP do great work in modelling best inclusive working practices.

However, they are working against the tide. When Ministers suggest that the disabled should be forced into unpaid work, and the front pages of the papers are full of stories of the grunting youth, we have our work cut out.

But do we collude? Of course services should be efficient but when we make the case that a service should continue because it provides an economic benefit downstream; when we tell employers that they should care about those with disabilities or SEN because they represent a significant part of their market; when we don’t collectively react with rage when parents have to pay for half their child’s AAC because while admitting the need the local authority says it’s just not got the budget, are we colluding with the underlying message that money, and from this an individual’s economic worth, is all that matters? Of course we can deploy these messages to good effect – and they are not wrong - but maybe we need to apply some balance.

To have the services that you need for your health and education; to have the best possible chance of employment and a decent living wage; to be supported if you cannot work; to be valued as an individual and included within society – these are things are not privileges if there is enough cash. These are rights. That’s the bigger fight.

Guest slot, Jean Gross CBE

It’s been a busy week, publishing a final report on my work as Communication Champion and talking to journalists and on the radio about my findings. As always, some of the media picked up on the less important messages and were less interested in the very serious issues of cuts to front-line services - but not all. I hope the publicity will do a little good.

It’s time, then, for me to ‘sign off’ as Champion. It has been a wonderful two years. I have seen fantastic practice in everything from baby groups to schools to young offender institutions. I’ve seen people everywhere get behind the Hello campaign with energy and creativity that no-one could have expected, given that many of those involved were uncertain whether they would still have a job in the future.

Highlights for me in the last weeks were the Hello Heroes event at BT Tower, a weekend with AAC users in Derbyshire, a visit to a language unit at Little Ridge School and visits to some really communication-friendly schools in Sheffield. And then , of course, there was being awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours list.

Getting an honour is a pretty random process and I have met so many people who deserve it a lot more than I do. But I was very pleased, especially with all the kind messages I got from people I have worked with. Thanks to you all for taking the time to write, and all those who sent the Trust a message to put in the big black memories book I was given as a leaving present. I will treasure that for ever.

People ask me what will happen now that I have stepped down. The answer is that the championing of SLCN will continue just as it did before the time-limited Champion role existed, through the highly effective lobbying work of The Communication Trust and the RCSLT. You can feel absolutely confident that a strong voice for children’s communication skills is still working hard to support all those children and young people everywhere whose needs still often remain unmet.

So good luck to the Trust for its future, vital work- and I wish all of you the very best for 2012 and beyond.

Could the Minister please read the report now? - Anita Kerwin-Nye, Director

Jean Gross last report as the Communication Champion was released this week, please click here to view.

Full of excellent intelligence on the state of services on the ground and bursting with sensible recommendations for improving outcomes for over a million children, you would have thought that this would be on the must read list for relevant Ministers – or at least their special advisors – or I’d settle for their junior civil servant.

However, the Minister for Public Health - Anne Milton – press response to the report is very telling, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16548559. Repeating the now ubiquitous quote that GP commissioning will solve all shows a total lack of understanding of how children’s community health services operate in practice and frankly leaves me in doubt as to whether anyone in her department has even read the report.

Jean Gross’ report is clear on the risks of leaving services for children with SLCN to GPs and clinical commissioning groups. In London, for example, only 9% of referrals to speech and language therapists go through GPs.

And Milton’s reference to GPs working with paediatricians and nurses on this issue shows a significant gap in knowledge about the realities of supporting children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). While community paediatricians have a valuable role in supporting children whose communication needs are part of more complex impairments most children with SLCN do not see (or need to see) a paediatrician or nurse. Their needs are met through speech and language therapists and appropriate targeted support from teachers and staff within early years and schools.

It could just be of course that this is the response from an uninterested Department of Health press officer. But sadly I suspect it is part of a wider malaise affecting the Department when it comes to children. I received an email yesterday inviting me to the launch of an ‘exciting’ new initiative in children’s health and well being to be unveiled by the Secretary of State (at least he hopes to be there) in Liverpool next week. I think most of us would settle less for exciting and more on functional. And the Trust are no nay sayers – we work hard to inform and to respond to government policy trying to ensure that it works in practice. But even we are stretched in understanding where Health places the needs of children who struggle to communicate.

This is at odds with the efforts of their government colleagues within Department for Education who have made such strides in work to identify and support children with SLCN. Maybe it is time for the entire responsibility (and budget) for this work to move across? It is this significant disparity in both understanding and in approach between these health and education nationally and locally that is of such grave ongoing concern with so much of Jean’s report highlighting the risks of these children falling between the gaps at a local level between the NHS and local authorities/schools.

The government’s communication champion has written a report with so many of the answers – just about time somebody read it!

From the report

38. I have met no one outside government who believe that commissioning by Clinical Commissioning Groups led by GPs will change this fundamental problem. All say it will make it
worse. I have found that in London, for example, only 9% of referrals for speech and language
therapy go though GPs. Most come from schools and health visitors. Most disabled children are dealt with by community paediatricians not GPs. Most referrals to CAMHs services do not go through GPs. Children requiring community health services are largely invisible to GPs, so it seems unlikely they will be a commissioning priority.

39. I would like to see the Health and Social Care Bill recognise this, and explicitly require Clinical Commissioning Groups to delegate the commissioning of these services to an expert joint local authority and NHS children’s commissioning team, managing pooled budgets.

Every year a year of communication? Anita Kerwin-Nye, Director

As we move on from the National Year of Communication The Communication Trust team are working hard to make sure that legacy of Hello is a strong one. While evaluation is starting in earnest on the impact of Hello it is clear that the work of the wonderful local champions, the efforts of the staff team, input from our funders and supporters and work across the Trust’s voluntary members have all combined in creating a wonderful focus on the importance of speech, language and communication skills for all children.

The Shine A Light Awards, Hello Heroes event and meetings between local co-ordinators and the Minister highlighted the inspiring work that has happened on the ground and the year was topped off by a CBE for Jean Gross as our wonderful Communication Champion. The Hello Journey showcases some of the year’s best bits!

The Year itself, the Champion, the progress we have seen in OFSTED, in early years and with the national curriculum were all proposals made 5 years ago by the Trust and as we look back at our original strategy we can be rightly proud – particularly of the way we have pulled together such an amazing cohort of talent and enthusiasm from the local to the national, across health, early years and education, across professionals, parents, children, young people and families and from the public, private and voluntary sector. Because, to quote Janet Cooper from Stoke Speaks Out , “communication is everybody’s business” and it is the Trust’s job to make sure everybody knows it!

But there is more to do.

As the Trust develops our next five year strategy we are ever mindful of the risks posed by cuts to services and system restructuring. We know that while policy may have moved forward, commissioning practice and the prioritisation of children’s speech, language and communication still need much work.

With education policy and school structures rapidly changing, The Communication Trust will be launching a schools campaign in 2012 to ensure that all schools are encouraged and supported to ensure that all children can reach their full potential. The work of the Hello heroes is not over yet and 2012 (and 2013, 14, 15 .....) will be another year of communication. And, to quote Mr Milliband, – bring it on!

The Hello journey - by Lynne Milford, Trust Press Officer

What a year it’s been! Hello, the national year of communication, has exceeded all our expectations.

Run by The Communication Trust in partnership with Jean Gross, the Government’s Communication Champion, Hello set out to make children and young people’s communication development a priority in homes and schools across the country.

A particular focus has been on supporting children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). It was John Bercow MPs Review of Services for Children and Young People (0-19) with Speech, Language and Communication Needs in 2008, which originally sparked off the national year.

Highlights of the year have included creating a network of 200 Hello local coordinators, smashing a Guinness World record book with I CAN’s Chatterbox Challenge event, disseminating to date 310,000 Hello resources and supporting the launch of a brand new CBeebies TV programme, Raa Raa the Noisy Lion.

In addition to this, 800 schools registered to take part in our No Pens Day Wednesday initiative, a brand new qualification was launched in conjunction with City and Guilds and the winners of the Shine a Light Hello awards were recently announced at a glitzy award ceremony hosted by TV and radio presenter, Vanessa Feltz.

From January to March 2012, the evaluation of the impact of Hello will take place. Information, resources and updates will continue to be available on our website. And we still want to find out about your excellent events and innovative practice by emailing enquiries@thecommunicationtrust.org.uk

A special thanks goes to BT and Pearson Assessment for their sponsorship of Hello and long term commitment to the cause. And thank to you for your contribution however big or small it might have been. We simply couldn’t have made the year such a success without your input.

For more information, download our Hello journey document here (http://www.hello.org.uk/media/9374/hello_journey_-_december_2011.pdf)

For information on the qualification click here (http://www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/qualifications )

Make TV time, talk time! - by Lynne Milford, Press Officer

According to an article in the Daily Mail today (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054950/Passive-TV-watching-harm-babies-speech.html), ‘passive’ television watching – leaving the television playing when you’re not really watching - is as dangerous for children as passive smoking.

Experts at the American Academy of Paediatrics said parents are more likely to use television or a computer to keep children occupied, but they revealed watching TV interferes with the amount of time children and parents spend interacting and can also interfere with a child’s ability to learn from play. The Communication Trust strongly believe that spending time speaking and listening to your child is vital for developing their communication skills. However, that does not mean that you cannot turn TV and other forms of technology into communication opportunities.

Earlier in the year, as part of the Hello campaign (national year of communication), we were involved in the development and launch of Raa Raa The Noisy Lion. Raa Raa is a show on CBeebies that supports the development of speech and language through rhyme and rhythm. We developed some top tips for making the most of your television time. These include making sure children watch programmes that are age appropriate, encouraging your child to ask and answer questions relating to the programme and if you let your children watch TV, watch it with them as much as possible.

To see Raa Raa’s top ten telly tips, click here (http://www.hello.org.uk/media/2946/raa_raa_top_tips_for_tv.pdf)

To find out more about Raa Raa, click here (http://www.raaraathenoisylion.com/) and you can also download Raa Raa resources for parents and practitioners here (http://www.hello.org.uk/resources/resources/resources-for-parents/raa-raa-the-noisy-lion.aspx)