Dorothy Goodman School
Communication

Advice to Support Staff and Parents

This document provides general advice in promoting and developing communication skills with children who have severe learning difficulties. It does not replace individual work, nor does it replace Speech Therapy programmes. It offers general advice, and some guiding principles that we at Dorothy Goodman have found to be effective.

1. Use Makaton Signing.

You should not sign every word, just the important ones, but signing is vital in helping children to focus and understand.

2. Use all Available Methods

Communication is so important that we need to use everything possible to assist children to learn - photos, symbols, objects that have meaning (e.g. car keys to indicate going out), gesture, facial expression etc.

3. Simplify Your Speech

Children with learning difficulties have trouble in focussing on speech and in understanding long sentences - so make them shorter, and use simpler words!

4. Make Communication Meaningful

Communication must have a purpose, so:

Give children choices
Ask them questions
Get them to tell you what they want
Listen to them when they want to communicate
Read books with children, look at pictures with them etc.

5. Social Communication

Think about and encourage areas such as:

Turn-taking
Waiting their turn
Eye contact
Speaking appropriately to different people
Greeting people appropriately

These things will take a long time, but there will be improvements as time goes on!