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The Children and Family Health Surrey Health Visiting team and our Early Years Education Services support children up to school age in developing early communication and interaction, activities and play.

Please visit our Speech, language and communication development page for information, advice and further resources.

If further support is needed please contact the health visiting team by viewing our health visiting page or  going to a child health drop-in.

The Specialist Speech and Language Therapy service provides assessment, therapy and advice for children who have not yet started school and have persistent and significant speech, language and social communication and interaction difficulties.

The Specialist Speech and Language Therapy service also see children from 0 to 18 years with a communication difficulty relating to a stammer, recently acquired brain injury, voice and/or acute deteriorating illness. Our Specialist Dysphagia Speech and Language Therapy team support children from 0 to 5 years with eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties. These Children can be referred directly to the Specialist Speech and Language Therapy Service through our Referral Service.

For children in school and who do not meet the criteria above, please contact the school-based Speech and Language Therapy team at Surrey County Council.

 

More Information

Levels of Support

  1. A support for all/universal approach delivering speech and language therapy: including website resources, Child and Family Health App. In addition to this therapists share professional knowledge and skills with educational staff and parents to improve their understanding of how to support a child’s early speech, language and communication development
  2. Targeted services designed to support children who are at risk of speech, language and communication difficulties and social communication differences. delivered via targeted workshops, targeted training videos and settings accessing and education settings utilising speech and language therapy resource packs Part 1, Part 2 and Appendices.


The Specialist Speech and Language Therapy service provides:

  1. Assessment and intervention for children who have not yet started school and have persistent and significant speech, language and social communication and interaction difficulties. Specific tailored communication programmes and advice for parents / settings to complete with a child.
  2. Assessment, therapy and advice for children from 0 to 18 years with a communication difficulty relating to a stammer, recently acquired brain injury, voice and/or acute deteriorating illness where their communication needs are not met via an Education Health and Care Plan.
  3. Specialist Eating, Drinking and Swallowing assessment, advice and management plans for babies and children where there is a high risk of aspiration. This service is accessible for children until they start school.

These Children can be referred directly to the Specialist Speech and Language Therapy Service through our Referral Service.

For children in school and who do not meet the criteria above, please contact the school-based Speech and Language Therapy team at Surrey County Council.

The support for all/universal approach and targeted service can be accessed at a pre referral stage; specialist speech and language therapy requires a child to be referred.

Useful Links

  • How to be a super communicator – BBC Tiny Happy People
  • Get down to your child’s level- When you get down to your child’s level they will be able to see what you are looking at and hear your sentences more easily, and you will be sure that you are talking about what interests them the most.
  • Follow your child’s lead – When you follow your child’s lead, you can talk about and describe what they’re interested in. This can help them learn words more quickly.
  • Describe what your child is doing – When you describe what your child is doing or looking at, you are using the words they need to talk about what interests them. This can help them link words they hear to their meanings.
  • Pause and wait for your child – When you pause and wait for your child to show you what they are interested in, it gives them time to start communicating or respond to your actions or words. Your child may point, look at an object, or say a word. The words you say will be all about what has interested them, making it easier for them to learn.
  • Listen, watch and respond – When you listen, watch and respond to your child’s communication, it helps keep the conversation going about something yourchild is interested in. The more turns you and your child take, the more words and sentences your child will learn.
  • Copy what they say and add a word – When you copy what your child says and add a word, it helps your child know they have shared their ideas with you and helps them learn how to make their sentences longer. If your child says ‘car’, you can reply with ‘big car’, ‘fast car’ or ‘red car’.
  • Use fewer questions – Questions can put pressure on a child to talk when they may not have the language to answer. To help your child, describe what is happening and talk about what you are doing as you and your child do it.
  • Ask open questions – When you do ask questions try to keep them open. That means ask ‘what’, ‘why, ‘where’, ‘who’ and ‘how’ questions that encourage more than just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. When you ask open questions, it helps open up the conversation.
  • Use an interesting voice – Games and words can be more engaging when you use a fun tone of voice, and this will encourage them to interact and communicate with you. The more you communicate together, the more words and sentences they can learn.

Targeted Advice Sheets

Below you will find useful resources on:

Attention and Listening

Play

Social Skills and Communication

Using Visuals to support communication

Understanding and following instructions

Vocabulary and sentence building (spoken language)

Speech

Fluency

Other advice around language and communication development

Advice and Tips

Early Years Resource Pack (Early Years Educational Settings and families)

Please visit the schools and nurseries page to download the speech and language therapy Early Years Resource Pack.

Useful Websites

Your referral

The specialist Speech and Language Therapy service provides assessment, therapy and advice for children who have not yet started school and have persistent and significant speech, language, fluency and social communication and interaction difficulties.

Our Specialist Dysphagia Speech and Language Therapy team support children aged 0 to 5 years with eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties.

Children aged 0 to 18 years with a communication difficulty relating to a stammer, recently acquired brain injury, voice and acute deteriorating illness should be referred directly to the Speech and Language Therapy service.

Children can be referred by their parent, health visitor, GP, therapist, early years’ service, paediatricians based in hospitals, audiology service, Mindworks Surrey or other agencies.

Referrals are made through the Referral Service.

Advice and Support

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