speech therapy group

The Swindon Down's Syndrome Group raises money to fund speech and language groups and all children who are members of the SDSG (those children with home or school with an SN postcode and members of the SDSG for 6 months) are eligible to attend.

The aim of the language groups is to give the children an opportunity to practice their speech and language skills in a structured and fun situation.  Most groups run weekly in term time for an hour and we practice skills such as understanding, sentence building, sound recognition and production, listening skills, attention and memory skills and conversational/interaction skills.

We now have two speech and language therapists and run seven groups.  Jacky Storey runs two groups for children aged between 12 months and 4 years.  Erica Ford runs five groups for children between 4 and 16 years.  Parents attend with their children, as do the children's teaching assistants (with permission from their Headteachers).  This gives parents the opportunity to see the kind of help they can give their children at home and gives the TA's insight into the way speech and language programmes can be delivered.

The children still continue to receive a service from the Swindon PCT Speech and Language Therapy department and, from the beginning, the group therapists and the PCT therapists have made sure they liaise closely to ensure the children get a coordinated service.  In recent years one of the group therapists (Erica Ford) has also been the PCT therapist who supports the school-age children in mainstream, strengthening the links between the work of the local Speech and Language Therapy department and the SDSG groups.  The committee of the SDSG and therapists also meet termly with Louise Campion, Head of Speech and Language Therapy Services to ensure that this cooperative venture continues to run smoothly.

For further information please contact Nicky Parker on 01793 640234 or at nicky.parker@swindondownsgroup.org.uk