Communication Development Profile

This practical CD-ROM resource provides a simple, shared framework to help speech & language therapists work more effectively with the families, carers and teachers of children with severe and profound learning disabilities.

The Profile immediately improves the way therapists support and advise teachers and families, and consequently results in a more united and holistic approach towards the child's development. It provides a clear descriptive breakdown of five key areas of language and communication development from birth to the development and use of grammatical sentences.

Areas are:

• Attention
• Comprehension (what the child understands)
• Expression (how the child communicates)
• Sound system
• Use of communication (what and why the child communicates).

The Profile also:

• Enables information from formal assessments and informal observations and experiences to be combined to jointly identify and/or to explain the child's stage of development for each key area.
• Gives a visual representation of the child's skills and allows the therapist to directly compare the stage of development of each area, and to identify the child' strengths and weaknesses.
• Establishes the communicative phase that the child is in and clearly illustrates the most appropriate style of intervention to best support the child's strengths and weaknesses.
• Reduces dissatification and misunderstandings when identifying targets and setting activities with both teachers and families, and in agreeing speech and language provision.

This profile is an essential tool for all therapists working with children with learning disabilities. It improves multi-disciplinary assessments; enables parents to have an informed and genuine role; makes target setting in educational settings directly relevant to the curriculum; expands on the P-Levels and better describes them; and enables the therapist to explain their thought processes, which all lead to better goal-setting and a cohesive communication development strategy for the child.

Age: 0-5

Chapters

• Introduction
• Resources and terminology
• Communication phases and intervention
• Attention control
• Development of intentionality
• Comprehension
• Expression
• Speech sound development
• Use of communication skills
• Joint attention, interaction and communication
• Appendices