Communication and Interaction

Children and young people who find it difficult to interact with the people and the world around them.

Types of need and what that could look like

Some things that children might find difficult are:

Examples of support available in our school

How we check it is working

• Talking to adults and or children and young people, especially when in a group.

• Talking about a topic they haven’t chosen to talk about.

• Making friends or keeping friends.

• Following rules made by someone else.

• Dealing with changes in the way they usually do things.

• Dealing with noise, smells or other sensations around them.

• Saying what they are thinking or feeling.

• Understanding what other people mean when they are talking.

*Find it difficult to express themselves.

• Teachers change what they are teaching or the way that they teach to help the child or young person learn more with the rest of the class.

• Use support programmes especially made to help the child or young person to build communication and interaction skills – for example, social use of language or sensory groups.

• Use resources in the classroom to help the child or young person understand or deal with things that are happening – for example, visual timetables, task boards, social stories.

• Get advice from professionals and specially trained staff in school to give advice.

• Use good role models to support interaction.

• Friendship circles and lunch time clubs to support during unstructured times, e.g. mindfulness colouring, lego therapy

*Use Wellcomm speech and language assessment to set targets.

*Observations of the child or young person to see if they are communicating or interacting differently.

• Look at targets set to see if the child or young person has achieved them.

• Talk to adults who have worked with the child or young person.

• Talk to the child or young person.

• Talk to parents.

• Use emotions cards and prompts