Speech, language and communication underpin everything we do - making our needs known, expressing our likes and dislikes, interacting with others and building relationships.
We often take these skills for granted, but many children struggle to communicate. They have speech, language and communication needs or SLCN.
A child with speech, language and communication needs:
Might have speech that is difficult to understand
They might struggle to say words or sentences
They may not understand words that are being used, or the instructions they hear
They may have difficulties knowing how to talk and listen to others in a conversation.
I CAN helps parents and practitioners providing information and resources by phone or email through the I CAN Help Enquiry Service, online via the Talking Point website and in person through their multi-disciplinary speech and language assessments for children.
I CAN have a selection of resources in their online shop to assist parents and children with speech and communication. I have been sent over some things to get an idea of what they do and also to encourage communication with my own children at home.
This is the Early Talkers Boxset. It is a 3 pack set, each containing 30 illustrated activity cards. Each of the packs has a different age level.
*Babbling babies - helps to build early communication skills from birth to 18 months. These come with many handy tips and early activities.
*Toddler Talk - 18mths to 3 years. Many of the activities on these cards encourage play and enhance toddler communication skills. Encourages more words and sentences.
* Chatting with Children - 3-5 years, to help with young childrens communication. Encourages play, speech, sentences.
Izebella is now a little old for the Babbling baby cards but at the perfect age for the Toddler talk pack and this is the one we are currently using.
The 30 cards are organised into 5 sections. Each section comes with a fun animal friend. Monkey, Elephant, Bear, Canary, Butterfly and each animal relates to certain activity such as "Building sentences", "Talking socially" "listening etc",
Very little is needs to use the cards, sometimes it just involves talking or pointing to parts of the body. Sometimes basic household objects may be required or a little paint or paper but nothing that costs the Earth or is hard to find.
It's good to do an activity a day. Most of them only take up a few minutes of time and encourage communication between parent and child.
This pack costs £19.99.
I was also sent a
" Moving on Activity Pack " too which is just great for Ryan and any child about to start high school this year.
This is designed for year 6 students which Ryan is now. It helps to support the (sometimes scary) transition from primary to secondary school and covers many issues such as school travel, lessons and most importantly bullying.
This pack comes in a fun Filofax type design with images and activity sheets. It also comes with passport reminder cards and a wallet. It costs £7.99 per pack. I think this is the sort of thing that primary schools should invest in and give out to all year 6 students towards the end of the school year just to help them get prepared.
I CAN are giving away some resource packs as above. There will be two winners and each winner will receive both the Moving On and the Early Talkers box set as above.
The competition will end on the 6th March 2015 and is open to residents of the UK.
Please enter by clicking the link below to be taken to the entry page.
RAFFLECOPTERI CAN can help
If you need help or advice for a child please visit the ICAN help page to find relevant contact details.
Win competitions at ThePrizeFinder.com - See more at: http://www.theprizefinder.com/content/ican-learning-resources#sthash.dSvMN4Ic.dpuf
