Supporting Early Communication in the Community

By Beth Deacon, ASLTIP Member (this article was lightly edited for length and clarity)

As a Children’s Speech and Language Therapist based in South Wales, I have extensive experience supporting early language development and helping adults use communication strategies in everyday interactions with children.

Having volunteered at a local parent and toddler group for over eighteen months, I realised that although excellent information about early language development exists, very little is aimed specifically at the volunteers who support these groups. Parent and toddler groups are often one of the first places where young children interact with adults outside their immediate family. Every interaction matters, and equipping volunteers with simple, evidence-based strategies has the potential to benefit many children and families.

With support from the Victoria Halstead Memorial Fund, I was awarded a £250 grant to develop, deliver and evaluate a pilot information session for volunteers at two local parent and toddler groups in South Wales.

The free 40-minute face-to-face session focused on:

• understanding how and why young children communicate
• practical universal communication strategies drawn from the Welsh Government’s Talk With Me campaign
• using these strategies during everyday toddler group activities such as play, music, snack time and craft
• signposting volunteers to further resources and free online training.

Nine volunteers attended the pilot sessions, and none had previously accessed training on supporting early language development.

The feedback was extremely encouraging. By the end of the session, every attendee reported that they:

• had learned more about how children’s language develops through everyday interactions
• felt more confident using communication-support strategies with young children
• knew where to find further information and free training
• would recommend the session to other volunteers.

The grant enabled me to provide the training completely free of charge and to evaluate its impact. Following the success of these pilot sessions, I am now exploring the feasibility of offering the training online so that parent and toddler group volunteers across Wales can benefit.

I am incredibly grateful to ASLTIP and the Victoria Halstead Memorial Fund for making this project possible.

Please see the accompanying poster (below) for further information, including feedback from attendees.

This project highlights how small grants can have a wider community impact. By equipping volunteers with practical communication-support strategies, more children and families can benefit from high-quality interactions during everyday activities. ASLTIP is proud to support initiatives like this through the Victoria Halstead Memorial Fund.