The Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust service for children’s speech and language therapy (SALT) has released a set of videos to assist clinicians, parents and carers in supporting children’s communication development.
The trust say that the provision of video and telephone consultations are part of SALT services “as we move towards being a digital-first organisation”.
Acknowledging that there is a lot of information and advice given during appointments which can be hard to remember at home, Speech and Language Therapist Chrissie Houghton said, “The videos mean that they will be able to go back and watch in their own time which we hope will help them to implement the appropriate the advice.”
Eight videos have been released, each sharing strategies widely used to support children and young people with a variety of speech, language and communication needs.
The topics covered are developing joint attention; supporting language development through play; using a ‘now and next’ board to help children understand what the task they have been set and what they will be doing next through visual and textual cues; object and sensory cues; helping children to make their own choices; using a communication board; creating opportunities for children to express themselves; and song bags, which help children to link objects to their favourite song, which can then be used to help children find opportunities to communicate.
To support access needs, the videos have been provided with options to use complete subtitles.
The video content joins the trust’s existing digital offer, which includes a therapy app library with a video how-to-use guide, a resource of useful websites for families, carers, teachers and professionals, and video consultation support such as a user guide and frequently asked questions.
To find out more, please visit the Birmingham Community Healthcare website here.
