Helping young people develop their communication skills at St John’s School
Communication is an essential part of everyday life, regardless of whether you are at home, at work or in your local supermarket. People communicate with one another to share ideas, to express feelings and to complete everyday tasks, so when the message is not received as intended it can be very frustrating. St John’s is a charity which runs a specialist school in Seaford and a college in Brighton, working with children and young people who are on the Autism Spectrum and who have complex learning disabilities. Effective communication is one of the five pillars of learning at St John’s school in Seaford which prepare young people for a successful life.
At St John’s we use a range of different tools to support our learners’ ability to understand language and to communicate with others. These tools include Visual Schedules, which are timetables that are presented with pictures and written information. Now and Next Boards are similar to timetables, but broken down to the level of what is happening now and what is happening next. For specific multi-step tasks sequencing/process visuals are used, which are a series of photos and instructions that break the tasks, down into the individual steps needed to complete them, e.g. all the steps needed to make a cup of tea. Talking Mats is a visual-based system for supporting learners to share their opinion on a range of topics. Social Stories are an important way of sharing information with a learner to support their understanding of a situation/behaviour/change that is about to occur; they can be read frequently to help with expectation and anticipation of future change. At St John’s school we are working towards increasing the use of Makaton with our learners. As a parent
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or grandparent, you may remember Mr. Tumble from CBeebies introducing youngsters to signing with Makaton. The signs used in Makaton are from British Sign Language, which is the language of the deaf community in Britain. A Makaton symbol is a simple black and white drawing that shows the meaning of a word. Today, over 100,000 children and adults use Makaton. St John’s also uses Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) systems with young people who are non- or minimally verbal. Examples of AAC systems include PODD books and PECS – these are visual systems, introduced by qualified Speech and Language Therapists, that allow the user to communicate by pointing to symbols to get their message across. It is important for our learners that there is consistency between the home and school environments. We achieve this by encouraging the use of visual supports at home. Often the Occupational Therapists will also create visual aids to support with activities of daily living (e.g. getting dressed, brushing teeth), and help to increase the learners’ independence. All of this fantastic work to develop the communication skills of autistic children and young people happens right here in Seaford! We would like to ask the community, local businesses and other organisations to get involved, so this November we will be launching the St. John’s Heroes programme for regular supporters.
For further information please contact us on 07912 269407.
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