The Role of the Speech and Language
Therapist
The Speech and Language Therapist works with the people that are
in your child’s environment, such as parents/carers, school staff, and
other people working with your child, to gather information about how
they communicate and relate to others.
We support everyone in the child’s life so that they can deliver the
intervention appropriate to the child’s communication needs and
embed this within everyday activities and learning environments.
Usually we will see your child within a school setting as this is a
familiar and natural environment for the child. When working with
your child, assessment may also involve classroom observation as
well as any appropriate direct work.
What the Speech and Language Therapist can do:
• Advise everyone on how to adapt the way they communicate
and interact with the child.
• Advise everyone to make changes to the environment e.g.
making it more structured and meaningful for the child.
• Provide training for everyone to support their understanding of
the child’s communication difficulties and how to support them
within their everyday activities.
• For a small number of children we may offer specific speech
and language interventions. We will usually request that a
school staff member or parent is available to watch these
interventions and carry out practice in-between therapy
sessions.
• We may also complete any onward referrals to other services
as appropriate.
• As your child has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)
we will usually set the objectives for their EHCP for a key stage,
and will give advice and clear next steps of how this can be
supported at home and school.
The Speech and Language Therapist will work with your child over
an “episode of care”. We will work with parents, carers, school
staff and the young person to set appropriate goals and specific
strategies. This will be as many interventions as the Speech
Therapist feels is necessary to ensure goals and strategies are in
place for your child.
We will make sure that everyone working with your child understands
how to implement goals and strategies. Once everyone supporting
your child (home/school) is confident with using the strategies, the
episode of care will be closed as their needs can be fully met by
home and school with the given advice.
We would expect both you and other people working with your child
to carry out the strategies we have recommended in your child’s
everyday life.
When your child has achieved their targets/outcomes and further
support from Speech and Language Therapy is needed, we would
welcome a new episode of care which can be started via a referral to our team.
In the special school team we see a wide variety of different social
and communication needs, including: social communication and
interaction, language, speech sounds and stammering (difficulty in
producing smooth, fluent speech).
There are now teams to support all of these areas of need who are
offering workshops and support, it may be appropriate for you to
access a workshop offered by one of these teams to better support
your child’s communication need.
Parent workshops include:
• Social – theory of mind, visuals workshop, social stories, comic
strip conversations.
• Language – colourful semantics, narrative therapy, blank
language levels (question words), vocabulary and word finding,
early language.
• Total communication – this may be useful for those children
using other forms of communication than verbal speech
(augmentative and alternative forms of communication).
• Phonology (speech sounds).
• Stammering.
Training and support to school staff will continue to be given and
support may be part of a whole school training session, or whole
class training, or individual training.
• We would ensure both you and those working with your child
know when to reaccess the Speech and Language Therapy
Service for the next episode of care if appropriate.
• Some children may need one episode of care, whereas others
may need ongoing episodes of care.
• You should also re-access the service if you have additional
concerns, or feel strategies are not effective and you would like
some further guidance and support.
Re-accessing our service is easy with parental consent: we
accept referrals from parents and other professionals (e.g. school);
you can contact us via a phone call to our team, or an email to
Children’s Therapy Services. Please also see our website for further
information.
T: 01253 951101
E: bfwh.admin.paediatrictherapy@nhs.net
W: https://www.blackpoolteachinghospitals.nhs.uk/services/
childrens-speech-and-language-therapy
The following websites have lots of information for parents, carers
and other professionals about different types of communication
needs and local SEND services:
• Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists www.
rcslt.org
• Speech and Language UK
www.speechandlanguage.org.uk
• STAMMA
www.stamma.org
• Michael Palin Centre for Stammering
www.stammeringcentre.org
• Afasic (Info about communication needs) www.afasic.org.uk
• Tiny Happy People
www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people
• Makaton (info about Makaton signs) www.makaton.og
• The Hanen Centre www.hanen.org
• Blackpool Local Offer for SEND
www.blackpool.gov.uk/Residents/Education-and-schools/Localoffer/
Local-offer-home.aspx
• Lancashire Local Offer for SEND
www.lancashire.gov.uk/children-education-families/specialeducational-
needs-and-disabilities/
