We’re in this together
Our speech and language tools are designed to work alongside local speech and language therapy services, enabling schools to make the best use of your time. Whether you are working for the NHS or an independent practitioner we can help ease your load.
We are therapists ourselves, so we recognise and understand the immense pressure on services. While we would love every child with a communication difficulty to be seen by a local speech and language therapist face to face for as many sessions as they need, we recognise that this is not a reality for the majority of pupils with SLCN in our mainstream primary schools.
The art of triage
Speech and Language Link act as a triage system within schools ensuring you see the pupils with the greatest level of need. Schools use the Language Link assessments to screen students understanding Identified pupils are clearly signposted for tiered levels of support. Those scoring between 6th to 16th percentile will be highlighted for in class support and those scoring below the 6th percentile will be flagged for discussion with a SaLT.
Our speech sound screen will also flag up simple speech sound programmes for school delivery and identify children who have more complex disorders. All our assessments are written and trialled by our in-house therapists, so you can be confident in the quality of referrals to your service.
Standardised and evidence based
Read our reports to find out how we developed our award winning assessments.
Infant Language Link Technical Report
Junior Language Link Technical Report
Data driven
We all work in a landscape driven by the need to show positive outcomes and promote evidence based practice. That’s why Speech & Language Link are built on a strong evidence base. All the classroom strategies promoted within the tools have been found to be effective at improving access to classroom learning and are included in the ‘What works’ database. We have conducted numerous efficacy studies alongside many areas collecting their own impact data. You can read about some of them in our impact report.
Our area reports allow you to monitor the level of need across all the schools using the packages in your area. You can see at a glance who has carried out screening, the numbers of children identified at the different levels, the interventions the school is providing and any areas where extra support or training might be required. At the end of the academic year, you will be able to view the impact of interventions, allowing you to focus your time effectively on the students with the most severe and complex needs.
Many NHS departments and local authorities have developed a referral pathway that includes the requirement for a Speech and Language Link score below 6th percentile, and results of 12 weeks of intervention so that an appropriate referral can take place.