Prepare the child/young person for experiences and learning opportunities.
Help the child/young person to understand and name their needs and emotions

• Create a ‘one-page profile’ involving parents/carers and the child/young person to identify and record how best to support
• Ensure there is good communication across settings and other support agencies eg home/school/GP/social care. Sharing information will help everyone to have a shared understanding of the child/young person’s strengths, ways to support to help the child/young person be prepared for new experiences so they can thrive and succeed.
• Ensure that routines are visually augmented and referred to explicitly (e.g., whole class or personalised visual timetables)
• Incorporate time for learning breaks as children/young people with speech, language and communication needs often tire easily. Learning breaks may be appropriate for the whole class not just individual children with speech, language and communication needs
• Begin work on a new topic by building on the child/young person’s existing knowledge and experiences (i.e., start with what they know and understand)
• Actively teach strategies for what to say and do when they do not understand. This resource can help to structure this.
• Be aware that the child/young person may have difficulty understanding gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice and jokes
• Explicitly explain the meaning behind irony, sarcasm, figurative language, rhetorical questions and idioms (e.g., “pull your socks up”, “it’s raining cats and dogs”, “in a minute”)
• Explicitly teach and link physiological feelings to vocabulary related to emotions (e.g. focus on physical feelings in a body and then build up to using an approach. Here is an example.

Consider and make reasonable adjustments to the environment including sensory needs
Give careful consideration to all transitions
Support friendships, interactions, social-emotional wellbeing and self-advocacy

• Consider and adapt environmental aspects (e.g. level of noise, seating, space to move around). For more information please see the ‘Communication Friendly’ section below
• Consider the use of distraction/focus toys, individual workstations and the use of timers to increase awareness of transitions and expectations
• Support oral presentations and explanations with pictures, real objects, symbols or actions
• Use visual aids, scaffolding and repetition, and give extra time to process and rehearse
• Provide ‘scaffolding’ for talking (e.g., talk prompts, key phrases) and writing (e.g., writing frames, word mats)
• Explicitly highlight and teach vocabulary for a particular topic, stories, concepts or lessons – this includes pre/post-teaching of key words and concepts (see Resources section)
• Implement supportive strategies for all forms of transition including within a lesson, lesson-lesson, class-class, year group-year group, school-school and preparing for adulthood (see Resources section)
• Encourage social interaction by supporting the organisation of structured lunchtime clubs, focusing on shared interests or by using a buddy system​

Listen to and engage with the child/young person
Use language that is appropriate to the child/young person’s level of understanding

• Meet the child/young person’s eye level​
• Use the child/young person’s name before asking a question or giving an instruction​
• Keep verbal instructions simple and use them in the order you want them carried out
• Use signing and symbols to support spoken language and text (see Resources section)
• Give time for the child/young person to rehearse their answer with a trusted adult before expecting them to engage in partner talk or answering a question in a large group​
• Check for understanding – ask the child/young person to tell you what they have to do
• Use repetition to support understanding
• Teach the child/young person how to use visual aids and scaffolding to support understanding and use of language
• Cue the child/young person into a change of topic of conversation/presentation – say “Now we are going to talk about
• When asking questions, consider the Blanks Levels of Questions framework (see Resources section)

Provide time for the child/young person to process information and respond
Value the child/young person’s response

• Provide opportunities for alternative methods of communication/recording (e.g., scribe, use of ICT, drawing, drama, art, symbols, signing)
• Give the child/young person at least 10 seconds of thinking time to respond
• Use visual support such as mind maps, flow charts, diagrams, social stories, now/next boards, comic strip format, symbols, Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) (see Resources section)