Speech and Language Therapy Archives - Page 12 of 12 - Resource Library - Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Moving to secondary school can be a big step for some children. It is an exciting transition but they may also be feeling a bit anxious about it. What is an ‘All about me’ sheet? When a child is moving to secondary school, it can be helpful for their new teachers and SENCO to...

What are objects of reference? Objects of reference are objects that are used alongside spoken language to represent activities, people, places, or events. These objects can support transitions from one activity or place to another. You’re probably already using some objects of reference, for...

Download here: Glossary of words you will hear in secondary school  

Moving to secondary school can be a big step for some children. It can be difficult for children to remember what to do in certain situations, especially if they are feeling anxious or overwhelmed. How do we use the help cards in school? Use the ‘help’ cards to talk through these situations with...

What is a school planner? Most secondary schools provide their pupils with a planner. This helps the pupils to be organised. It is like a diary but it goes from September until July. The planner has different sections. The main part is the diary section. This is where pupils record homework they...

Visual Support When chatting with your child, referring to pictures or objects related to the conversation topic will help them to learn and remember new words. Use sign and gesture to support your spoken language.   ‘Here and Now’ Try to relate things to the ‘here and now’ and your...

What are social stories? Social stories are a personalised, visual approach that: Describe a social situation or context in a way that helps people with developmental disorders (often Autism) to understand Helps a child or young person to make sense of social situations, routines, the meaning of...

Children need to be able to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. You can try the following activities at home to help develop your child’s sound awareness skills: Rhyming games Nursery rhymes sit opposite your child so they can see your mouth moving sing nursery rhymes...

What is comprehension monitoring? Some children find it difficult to understand language, and what people are saying to them. This might include instructions and stories. These children often also need support to be aware of times when they don’t understand information or instructions, for...

Pre and over-learning topic vocabulary using word webs Choosing vocabulary Select the most important vocabulary items from the curriculum (identified on a weekly or half-termly basis). Learning vocabulary Create a ‘Word Web’ for each word: what it means what it sounds like how many...

What is a school timetable? At secondary school your child will be given a timetable. The timetable tells them what lessons and breaks they have on each day of the week, who teaches the lesson and which classroom they need to go to. Some schools have a two week timetable called Week A and Week...

What is an ‘All about me’ sheet? When a child is moving to secondary school, it can be helpful for their new teachers and SENCO to learn more about them. This information will help them best support the child in school and put extra help in place where needed. How do I use an...

What does emotionally dysregulated mean? Being emotionally regulated means that you are ‘emotionally available’ to interact and learn. When we are emotionally dysregulated we might feel cross, anxious, stressed, upset, distracted and this makes it hard to be ‘emotionally available’ to...

What are people games? People games are physical games you play with your child without any toys, for example, tickling and chasing. Why are people games so great for communication and interaction? There are lots of opportunities for your child to take a turn as they are repetitive and predictable....

What is understanding and managing feelings? Some children have gaps in their vocabularies for ‘feelings words’. This means that they can struggle to know and communicate how they feel. This can make it hard for them to manage feelings which can impact on their behaviour. We can use strategies...

When your child starts at their new secondary school, they will come across some new words that they may not have heard before. At secondary school, there are some new lessons that they won’t have done before or that may have different names to ones they used at primary, for example, food...

Simplify questions Questions that require the young person to summarise and retell can be too hard, for example, asking “Tell me what happened”. This requires the young person to ‘read-between-the-lines’ and understand what you might be referring to, pick out the important parts of an...

What is scaling and regulating emotions and behaviours? The use of a visually supported scale to teach a child to recognise different levels of emotion. The scale breaks down the child’s responses to the different levels of emotion by labelling each level with what the behaviour looks like and...