The perspectives of children and young people who have speech, language and communication needs, and their parents
This report looks at the quality of life for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs and the services they receive.
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The Better Communication Research Programme (BCRP) was commissioned as part of the Better Communication Action Plan, the government’s response to the Bercow review of services for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). This had recommended a programme of research ‘to enhance the evidence base and inform delivery of better outcomes for children and young people’.
This is one of four thematic reports which synthesize the findings from the 10 technical reports that report the results from individual BCRP projects; there are also two interim reports and a report of the BCRP as a whole.
Any attempt to understand how best to configure services and to evaluate their impact must consider the perspectives of the people in receipt of those services, in this case, the children and young people with SLCN and their parents. These perspectives have been investigated within the BCRP by two key projects - the preferred outcomes study and the prospective study of children with language impairment (LI) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
This report presents first the children’s perspectives; it covers their self-reported quality of life which suggests that children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) experience an impoverished quality of life compared to their peers. The report then focuses on aspects of their lives that children would like to improve and then finally focuses on the positive aspects of their lives that children reported.
Includes:
- Introduction
- Children’s and young people’s perspectives
- Parents’ perspectives
- Conclusions
- References
- Appendix 1 - BCRP reports