Nursery World - 12m to boost children's speech skills

A 12m action plan to improve children's speech, language and communication skills has been unveiled by the Government.

It sets out a range of measures, including the appointment early in theNew Year of a 'communication champion' to raise awareness of speech,language and communication issues, and a Communication Council tosupport the plan.

There will also be a National Year of Speech, Language and Communicationin 2011-2012.

The plan is the Government's response to the review into services forchildren and young people with speech, language and communication needsby MP John Bercow, which was published in July (News, 10 July).

The Government has accepted the Bercow report's 40 key recommendations,and the action plan sets out a timescale for each of these.

Many of the strategies are to be integrated within mainstream earlyyears, education and health services, to provide prevention, earlyidentification and intervention services to support children and theirparents.

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