SEND
Communication & Interaction
Time to Talk
Time to talk has been specifically created to teach and develop social interaction skills and improve oral language skills for children aged between 4-6 years old.
Time to talk contains over 40 sessions which are designed for children who will be seen two to three times each week. The book will also help teachers to develop the basis of interaction with the help of a friendly and approachable character, Ginger the Bear who is a core feature in all of the activities.
The skills which a child can gain include:
Eye Contact
Taking turns
Let’s Practice
Sharing
Greetings
Awareness of Feelings
Giving
Following Instructions
Listening
Paying Attention
Play skills
Socially Speaking
Social interaction is one of the most delicate times during a child’s education and for the majority of children with learning difficulties, this social interaction is not something that comes naturally to them. The importance of social interaction in terms of creating and maintaining relationships is vital, this will also help with a child’s independence when outside the school environment.
Socially speaking offers a social skills programme for students with mild to moderate learning difficulties, and physical and medical disabilities.
The programme includes three key areas;
Let’s Communicate
Let’s Be Friends
Let’s Practice
Socially speaking aims to improve a pupil’s self-esteem, listening skills and expressive language abilities.
Social Stories/ Comic Strip Conversations
Social Stories and Comic Strip Conversations can help children with autism develop greater social understanding and stay safe.
Social stories can be used to:
develop self-care skills (eg how to clean teeth, wash hands or get dressed), social skills (eg sharing, asking for help, saying thank you, interrupting) and academic abilities
help someone to understand how others might behave or respond in a particular situation
help others understand the perspective of an autistic person and why they may respond or behave in a particular way
help a person to cope with changes to routine and unexpected or distressing events (eg absence of teacher, moving house, thunderstorms)
provide positive feedback to a person about an area of strength or achievement in order to develop self-esteem
as a behavioural strategy (eg what to do when angry, how to cope with obsessions).
Comic strip conversations are simple visual representations of conversation. They can show:
the things that are actually said in a conversation
how people might be feeling
what people's intentions might be.
Comic strip conversations use stick figures and symbols to represent social interactions and abstract aspects of conversation, and colour to represent the emotional content of a statement or message.
Friendship Formula
The Friendship Formula is designed to help children aged 8–13 develop their communication and relationship skills. The Friendship Formula consists of 40 sessions, divided into four units focusing on:
self-awareness and self-esteem
emotional awareness and regulation
conversational skills
friendship and relationship skills.
Throughout the programme, students work towards creating an ‘All About Me’ book which helps them learn about and respect themselves and others. The Friendship Formula is designed for use with groups of 5–8 children but can also be adapted for larger groups.
Lego Therapy
Lego® therapy is a social development program for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or other social communication difficulties. It uses children's love of playing with Lego® to help them develop communication and social skills.
PECS
The Picture Exchange Communication System, or PECS, allows children with little or no communication abilities to communicate using pictures. Children using PECS are taught to approach another person and give them a picture of a desired item in exchange for that item. By doing so, the child is able to initiate communication. A child can use PECS to communicate a request, a thought, or anything that can reasonably be displayed or symbolized on a picture card. PECS works well in the home or in the classroom.
Attention Autism
Attention Autism is an intervention that aims to develop natural and spontaneous communication through the use of visually based and highly motivating activities. The objective is that the sessions are fun and offer an irresistible invitation to learn.
Aims of Attention Autism
To engage attentio
To improve joint attention
To develop shared enjoyment in group activities
To increase attention in adult-led activities
To encourage spontaneous interaction in a natural group setting
To increase non-verbal and verbal communication through commenting
To build a wealth and depth of vocabulary
To have fun!
Stages of Attention Autism
The Attention Autism programme progresses through a series of stages, building on each skill level. Each new stage is introduced when the group is ready to expand attention skills.
Stage 1: The Bucket to Focus Attention
Stage 2: The Attention Builder
Stage 3: Turn taking & Re-engaging Attention
Stage 4: Shifting & Re-engaging Attention
Intensive Interaction
The Intensive Interaction approach involves interacting with children with communication needs by imitating their behaviour, responding to them in a very highly responsive way, and mirroring what they do as a basis to communication and interaction. Therefore, this does not necessarily mean interaction will be verbal.
The Intensive Interaction approach includes a range of techniques, such as:
Physical contact
Eye contact
Vocal echoing
Exchanging nonverbal communication, including eye contact and facial expression
Behavioural mirroring
Turn-taking
Running commentaries
Joint focus activity
Barrier Games
Barrier games are a specific form of information gap activity. Information gap activities are activities for two or more learners, where one player has information the other player needs, and vice versa. Barrier games require learners to sit with a barrier between them and convey information to each other to reach a common goal.
They are designed to improve communication and listening skills and require constant teamwork.
Skills developed by barrier games:
Listening to and giving specific directions and instructions
Asking appropriate questions
Understanding positional language
Understanding relevant vocabulary
Using descriptive language
Wellcomm
WellComm identifies children needing speech and language support. It provides age-appropriate, play-based intervention activities enabling teachers to deliver appropriate and focused activities to target pupils with language difficulties, enhance skills of those developing within the normal range and provide guidance for group-based teaching.
The activities can also be used at home so that effective support is provided whether or not a child is referred to a Speech and Language Therapist.
Communication Visuals
Teachers use gestures, objects, pictures and photos alongside speech, when interacting with children. Teachers can also use a signing system (such as Makaton and Signalong). Sign and gesture will support a child to understand what is being said, and will also support a child to communicate.
Specific Speech and Language Therapy Interventions
Pupils Individual Speech and Language Programmes of work are delivered by school in conjunction with Speech and Language Therapists advice and guidance.
Cognition & Learning
Teaching Sight Vocabulary and Improving Reading Fluency- A precision teaching approach.
It is important when working with children that they read at a level that is called proficiency level. This means they can read the material at a 95% accuracy level. This precision teaching approach is a method used to monitor progress in acquiring sight vocabulary. It is about building a sight- vocabulary using a visual method. This is learning to read words by looking at them and remembering them, rather than sounding them out.
IDL Cloud
The IDL Literacy intervention is a speaking-computer-based multi-sensory system which supports learners with dyslexia and other learning difficulties to increase their reading and spelling ages.
Programs we use:
Active Literacy Kit
The Active Literacy Kit is a kit to teach the basic skills of reading and spelling. The Active Literacy Kit offers a series of timed exercises which together build the foundation skills needed for automatic, fluent and accurate reading and spelling.
Write from the Start
The ability to produce fluent, legible handwriting affects attainment in many areas of the curriculum. Write from the Start offers a radically different approach that will guide a child through the various stages of perceptual and fine-motor development to lay the foundations for flowing, accurate handwriting.
Fast Track Phonics
Fast Track Phonics has been developed to support children in year 2 who did not achieve the expected level in the Year 1 Phonics Check. Fast Track Phonics is a 14-week programme which focuses on the key skills of all good phonics programmes which are:
Grapheme/ phoneme correspondence
Blending to support reading
Segmenting to support spelling
Blending and segmenting as reversible processes
Fast Forward Spelling
Fast Forward Spelling is a catch-up intervention programme for year 6. Fast Forward Spelling is a 12-week programme with daily sessions planned for each week. It focuses on:
Spelling rules and conventions
Teaching approaches
Independent practice.
Social, Emotional and Mental Health
ROAR Response
Childhood should be a carefree, fun time, but sometimes children and young people face emotional and even traumatic experiences that may be related to school and educational situations.
Being expected to deal with problems and challenges life presents can become quite overwhelming for some, leading to anxiety, stress and even depression. We can’t control life’s situations, but being able to thrive despite these challenges comes from having strong skills of resilience. The ROAR Response is a whole school approach to Mental Health in which children are supported to build their resilience.
Acorn Room
Our Acorn Room provides a nurturing environment with the use of low-level therapeutic approaches for children who are struggling to access parts of school due to social or emotional reasons. The sessions may be in a small group or on a 1:1 basis. The room combines therapeutic, nurturing and educational approaches so that staff can address both the child’s underlying emotional needs and teach them the skills they need for life.
SEEDLINGS
Seedlings is a therapeutic service based in 120 primary schools. Delivered in partnership by PSS and YPAS, the Seedlings team works with children to explore and process feelings that are troubling them and develop confidence in expressing themselves. This CAMHS service is funded by Liverpool CCG. Sometimes when children are growing up, changes at home or at school can be difficult to deal with. The Seedlings team support the emotional needs of children allowing them to develop, grow and build their resilience. Difficult feelings can affect relationships with important people in our lives, when these feelings are expressed in therapy it becomes easier to understand and make sense of. The qualified therapists provide a range of support that is age appropriate and tailored to what each child needs. This includes both 1:1 sessions and group work that can use a range of techniques including:
Talking therapies
Arts therapies
Support and advice for families
Providing education and resources to help staff deal with difficult emotional issues
Brain Breaks
We use Brain Breaks as a quick and effective way of changing or focusing the physical and mental state of children. They are mental breaks to support children to stay focused and attend. The breaks energize or relax.
Sensory and/or Physical Needs
Sensory Motor Circuit
Participation in a short sensory motor circuit is a great way both to energise and settle children into the school day. The aim is to focus concentration in readiness for the day’s learning. The circuit also encourages the development of the child’s sensory processing skills. Many children can benefit from attending a Sensory Circuit, even for a short period of time.
Children who benefit from participation in a Sensory Motor Circuit are those who:
Constantly fidget in class
Are slow to start work and constantly missing cues
Have difficulty organising self
Are lethargic and dreamy
Have poor coordination and balance
Have known sensory processing difficulties
Are constantly rocking
Have difficulty paying attention
Lack of confidence to join in
Sensory Room
Our sensory room is a therapeutic space with a variety of equipment that provides children with calm and focus so they can be better prepared for learning and interacting with others.
It is a specially designed room which includes lights, mirrors, colours, sounds and sensory soft play objects all within a safe environment that allows the child using it to explore and interact without risk.
Write from the Start Handwriting Intervention
This intervention can be easily implemented in the classroom to support writing legibility, fluency and/or endurance. The programme develops fine motor skills so that children gain the necessary control to produce correctly formed letters and the skills for effective handwriting.
Fine Motor / Gross Motor skills
Individual Interventions are used to support specific children recommended by professionals. Occupational Therapists can provide specific instruction on how these interventions can or should be used with an individual child.