Assessing Communication

Book excerpt: Assessing Communication describes and includes a practical assessment of functional communication in four parts. It will be of particular value to speech and language therapists and teachers working with pupils who have severe learning difficulties. It considers communication skills from the earliest interactions to the skills of children working within level one of the National Curriculum English. It will enable the reader to build a careful and detailed assessment of 'how' and 'what' a child is communicating and to assess a wide range of communication difficulties. A completed assessment will supply information to construct an individual, total communication system for each child, which can include sign, symbol and speech output devices. It will enable differing professionals to assess together using a shared framework and to then plan realistic support for an individual child. The assessments provided are photocopiable.