A communication friendly environment is a space that is designed to promote and support communication for everyone who uses it.
Creating a communication friendly environment is a term used to describe key features of the environment, and the way people interact within that space, so that everybody can feel included.
Currently the East and South Ayrshire Speech and Language Therapy Teams work jointly with Education partners to help education establishments achieve five badges. These form the ‘Communication Friendly Accreditation’, illustrated in the image below.
Creating a communication friendly environment in schools and early years centres
A communication friendly classroom should make communication:
- easy
- effective
- enjoyable
This will:
- provide support for children and young people with speech, language and communication difficulties
- enhance communication development universally
- remove barriers to communication
This, in turn, will support learning, achievement, and social and emotional development.
What makes a communication friendly environment?
The communication friendly environments should have:
- Minimal background noise. Distractions in the background can make it more difficult for children and young people to listen and focus their attention. Can everyone hear and be heard?
- Signs, symbols, photographs and writing. Resources may be labelled with words, photos and symbols to help children and young people be more independent in accessing what they need. This also encourages independent organisational skills. How widely and consistently are these used? Are families shown how these work?
- Clear and consistent routines: how does the environment help the children and young people know what to expect, and when?
- Opportunities to have experiences to talk about! Children and young people are more likely to engage in conversation when they are interested, or excited by what they are doing. They should have opportunities to have new experiences, and learn new words.
- Open ended activities that are accessible for children and young people of all home languages and all language levels.
- An ‘asking friendly’ attitude where children and young people are encouraged to seek clarification and help where required e.g. ‘please say that again’, or ‘what does……mean?’.
- Opportunities to engage in structured conversations with their friends.
Resources
- Communication friendly checklist
- Speech, language and communication framework
- I Can – Information about speech, language and communication needs
Feedback
Here is some feedback from our service users who have begun their communication friendly journey:
“This is really useful as I often don’t know what she is trying to tell me”
Parent
“This helps me to ensure children feel calm and can communicate their needs”
Staff member
“There has been notable improvement with transitions and routines for the children”
Staff member