Assess

When concerns have been raised about a child's communication skills in nursery and initial observations find that the child has difficulty socially interacting with others, more information and assessment is needed.

Concerns in this area can be a result of many factors, such as developmental delay, early childhood trauma or an underlying condition. It is really important to get as much information about the child's needs in this area so support can be effectively planned and the information can be passed on to other agencies if needed. Details of other agencies can be found in the Outside agencies section of this toolkit.

Example of concerns in this area include:

1. Difficulties/delays in language development

• delayed speech
• usual language, vocalisations and echolalia

2. Difficulties/delays in social interaction

• low interest in other people, low awareness of others, joint attention
• concerns about initiation of interaction
• concerns about recognising non-verbal communication
• not making friends, maintaining friendships
• not understanding social situation, compromising and negotiating

3. Repetitive behaviours

• excessive repetitive play
• over reliance on routines and/or familiar adults
• accessing limited activities

4. Flexibility of thought

• limited range of play, lack of imaginative play
• self-stimulation
• rigid use of routines/rituals

The National Autistic Society describes behaviours that maybe useful for setting staff to use in assessing children where there are concerns about their social communication.

There are also different checklists that may be useful to use to gain more information such as the one included in the Cumbria County Council document - Supporting and enhancing early education for two year olds.

The Autism Education Trust (AET) have also developed a Progression Guidance which can be downloaded for free and used to assess and monitor social communication needs.

The SCERTS approach has identified 3 stages of social communication development and these are useful to consider when planning any extra support a child may need:

1. The Social Partner Stage

Children at this stage use only pre-symbolic means of communication to connect to others (e.g. re-enactment gestures, facial expressions, body position, vocalisations, proximity etc).  They use less than 3 different words or phrases, regularly and with communicative intent.

2. The Language Partner Stage

Children at this stage often use simple, symbolic means with communicative intent (e.g. simple spoken words, sign language, pictures, or other forms of augmentation).  At this stage children have more than 3 but less than 100 different words or phrases that they use regularly and with communicative intent.  Children at this stage may rely on echolalia to communicate.  Many children with social communication needs are at this stage when they have learnt some language but do not use it functionally.

3. The Conversational Partner Stage

Children at this stage often use robust vocabularies and able to convey their own ideas using full and creative sentences either through spoken language or augmentative means.  At this stage children use more than 100 different words or phrases that they use regularly and with communicative intent and they spontaneously use at least 20 different combinations of sentences with a person's name and verbs.

It is important to accurately assess a child's social communication stage as the support and intervention needed at each stage is different.

(information taken from Prizant et al (2006) The SCERTS Model:  Volume I:  Assessment & Volume II Program planning and intervention.  Baltimore, MD)