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Groups for children

Speech and Language Therapists can refer a child to these groups if appropriate.

Early Years Group

  • Attention and Listening Group
    • This group is for children who are learning to listen and attend. The activities are designed to promote listening and turn taking skills. The session lasts for approximately 40 minutes and consists of games using noise –makers, instruments, environmental sounds and speech. It is suitable for children aged from 2 ¾ years to school age.  The group is held once a week for five weeks
  • Sounds Fun
    This is for parents and carers and their children. You can help your child to listen and learn new sounds through fun and play activities. The classes help children to develop early speech and communication skills. The 45-minute group sessions are for parents/carers and children aged from 3 years to school age.
  • Early Language Group
    The group is suitable for children who are finding it hard to understand language and also for those who find talking difficult. The sessions are held once a week for five weeks and last 45 minutes. Activities are designed to develop a child’s comprehension and talking.
  • Parent child interaction (PCI) group
    PCI groups are split in two, with a group for parents and a group for children. A therapist leads the parents’ group and an assistant works with the children. A video is made of each parent interacting with his/her child and this is repeated at the end of the course. The aim is for the parents to understand how they interact and to learn different styles of communicating with their children with the ultimate goal of developing the children’s interaction skills.

    The group is for five weeks and each session lasts for about an hour.
  • BLAST - Boosting Language, Auditory Skills and Talking
    The BLAST pre school programme is a colourful and engaging resource designed to develop and pre-linguistic skills of attention, listening, speech sound awareness and story awareness in young children. The daily programme should be carried out in a pre-school/Nursery for a 6 week block with small groups of 3-4 year old children.

    Feedback from the BLAST course:
    "It was a great aid and the children responded well and engaged with the material"
    "His speech blossomed"
    "They began working together and their turn-taking improved"
    "It was great to have a plan of what we are doing each day"
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