Speech and Language Therapy at Hamilton
At Hamilton, our Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) Team is dedicated to supporting every child’s communication needs. Our team consists of one Senior Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) and two Speech and Language Therapy Assistants (SLTAs) who work collaboratively with staff, students, and families to ensure a total communication approach that helps each child reach their full potential.
How We Support Communication Development
We follow a graduated approach, offering speech and language support at three levels:
- Universal Support
All children at Hamilton benefit from universal strategies designed to create communication-rich environments that encourage speech, language, and communication development across the school.
- Targeted Support
Some children require additional support, which may involve an SLTA working with a specific class to help implement structured interventions alongside school staff.
- Specialist Support
For children with specific speech and language needs, we provide individualized specialist support. This may include tailored intervention plans delivered by the SALT team, classroom staff, or a combination of both to ensure the best outcomes.
Throughout a child’s time at Hamilton, they may receive support across different levels as their communication needs evolve.
How Will My Child Be Identified for Support?
1. Parental Consent – On entry to school, parents receive a consent form to sign and return.
2. Assessment – The class teacher and SALT team assess your child’s communication needs and develop a Communication Profile, which highlights strengths, areas for development, and key objectives.
3. Tailored Support – Your child will access the appropriate level of speech and language therapy throughout their school journey.
At Hamilton school, every child has an individualised communication profile that is updated each half term, ensuring their speech and language therapy targets are the most relevant for them. Children are assigned a ‘partner stage’ that reflects their current communication level. This allows the team to set functional targets that are relevant to the child, enabling us to celebrate small steps of progress. Children may move up through the partner stages as their communication develops. We have summarised each partner stage below;
Social partner
At this stage of communication development, the objective is to encourage intentional communication and enjoyment in social interaction. We want the students to realise their behaviour can impact our behaviour and that interaction and communication can be fun and beneficial to them.
The children who are ‘social partners’ may present with the following patterns…
- May not be fully aware of their environment or their peers
- May be aware of their peers but are unable to accommodate needs beyond their own
- May communicate to get needs met using physical forms – such as taking an adult to something
- May not yet be responsive to instruction
- May find it challenging to be part of a small group
- May show more interest in objects than people
- May use very few words in a functional way to communicate a message
- Mostly uses communication mostly for getting needs met (requesting)
Language partner
This is a very broad partner stage and the student can spend a long time in this stage.
At this stage of communication development, the objective is to encourage volume and breadth of communication. The student is gaining shared attention, learning to follow instructions and build sentences. There is a big focus on developing a rich vocabulary. Students may be non-verbal at this stage and developing communication skills using an alternative or augmentative methods.
The children who are ‘language partners’ present with the following patterns…
- May be verbal and using single words or early word phrases
- May be non-verbal but able to build phrases using an alternative or augmentative system
- May have difference in the way they understanding/process language, particularly more abstract language
- Are in a period of steep vocabulary learning and will require lots of over learning
- May present with a more limited range of language functions
Conversational partner
A student is at this stage when they have acquired a good level of functional communication and require support to develop linguistic and social communication competence for conversations.
The children who are ‘conversational partners’ present with the following patterns…
- Differences in the way they might initiate or terminate a conversation
- Differences in conversational style and ability to adapt conversational style to conversational partner
- May use communication for a wide range of functions
- May be able to communicate in depth about specific areas of interest
- May find it challenging or need support to repair a communication breakdown
- Differences in the way rules are interpreted and flexibility is exercised with respect to rules
- May present with differences in social thinking and understanding requiring specific teaching and support strategies
- May need specific teaching and support to understand and use emotional vocabulary
- May need adult support to regulate emotions
- May continue to make some minor errors with respect to grammar of language, especially written language
- Is developing a broad range vocabulary knowledge and be experimental in its use
What Interventions Might My Child Receive?
Depending on their individual needs, children may take part in a range of evidence-based interventions designed to develop early communication skills, such as:
• Intensive Interaction – Encouraging social interaction and communication through play and imitation.
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) – Supporting communication using tools like PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System), Aided Language Displays, and Communication Books.
- Attention Autism – A structured approach to develop attention and engagement.
- Sensory Sentences – Using symbols and sensory experiences to build communication skills.
- Lego-Based Therapy – Encouraging social communication through collaborative play.
- Intensive interaction – Developing early communication through shared interaction.
Children receiving specialist support may have a personalized program delivered by the SALT team, class team, or both.
How We Support Families
At Hamilton, we believe in working closely with parents to support communication development at home. We offer:
• Communication Profiles – Shared with parents to track progress and align with short-term EHCP communication targets.
- Parent Information Resources – Guidance on different speech and language approaches.
- Parent Workshops – Opportunities to learn about communication strategies and ask questions.
- Regular Updates – Speech and language updates featured in the school newsletter.
- Ongoing Support – Our SALT team is always available to provide resources and ideas to support communication development at home.
- One-to-One Drop-In Sessions – Half-termly sessions on Teams that parents can book for individual support and advice.
If you have any questions or need support, do not hesitate to get in touch with our SALT team – we are here to help.
Useful Links and Information
For information on tried and tested I pad apps to support communication , go to
www.wmspeechtherapy.co.uk/resources and click on Tried and tested apps for the I pad
