Heartbeat: Speech and language therapists to “WellComm” new screening tool

April 16, 2019

In all aspects of life, communication is of the upmost importance.

Our therapists’ work includes helping to develop communication skills in the young, as more than 10 per cent of children have a speech, language and communication need.

Our children’s therapies and nursing team has developed a new ‘second generation’ of the WellComm screening tool which will be launched in June this year. The WellComm Primary Screening Tool follows the highly acclaimed WellComm Early Years Screening Tool which was first developed by the team and published in 2010.

Kay Baker, Team Leader for Children’s Therapies told Heartbeat: “The WellComm Primary Screening Tool is a complete speech, language and social communication toolkit. Utilising a ‘traffic lights’ system, WellComm Primary allows primary school teaching staff and practitioners to help identify children between the ages of six and eleven who are in need of referral or support, providing a tailored intervention strategy for all children they see.

WellComm Primary comes with The Big Book of Ideas which is full of intervention activities, which can be photocopied. They are all designed to be fun, friendly and engaging to help improve language skills, whatever the age or ability of the child. “Where there are concerns with a child, they can assess them and identify activities to carry out with the child which will help to minimise any identified difficulties.”

Kay added: “This has been a really exciting and motivating project for our team. We have enjoyed being able to develop a tool that will be easy for school staff to use and fun for the children to be engaged in.

“Feedback we have received for the original tool was excellent and we hope that this new screening tool will be just as successful.”