Contributions from: Jannet A. Wright, Joy Stackhouse.
Abstract
There is broad agreement that professionals across health and education services need to collaborate in order to ensure the best outcomes for children with special educational needs. During the early years, collaboration is essential in order to identify and support children who are at risk of having persisting speech, language and literacy difficulties. Our understanding of the relationship between oral and written language development has moved on considerably in recent years, but much of the research is not easily accessible to practitioners. Consequently, many of them feel unconfident about their role in identifying "at risk" children and do not fully understand the roles of others in the multi-disciplinary team.
This project was set up to design, deliver and evaluate a multi-disciplinary course to improve the identification and support of children in the early years who are at risk of having speech, language and literacy difficulties. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to determine participants' knowledge and practice before and after attending the course. Key findings are presented and discussed in relation to the implications for future multi-disciplinary working in this field.
This project is funded by AFASIC and the British Dyslexia Association, with a grant from Glaxo-Wellcome plc.
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