Sparkles Speech Therapy

Sparkles aim is to address the challenges of speech production, expressive language and communication associated with Down's syndrome.

Supported by their parents, children work in small groups led by a Speech and Language Therapist, to learn strategies and activities which can be used at home to facilitate and develop communication skills.  The weekly sessions also give parents the opportunity to meet other families.

Sparkles focuses on all aspects of communication, including speech skills, language development, use of signing and symbols, interaction skills and attention and listening. We focus on the communication environment, so that others can support the children to communicate effectively as well as the development of the children’s communication skills.

Group sessions may include activities to develop

• Participation skills, attention, listening and turn taking
• Social language, greetings, asking for help, offering turns to others, making choices, sharing
• Communication: through a range of mediums; spoken word, sign, body language etc,
• Vocabulary: to learn new words based on a termly theme Vocabulary is represented by objects and or pictures and also consolidated in songs, books and other formats using spoken word and sign.
• Language skills, to combine words, learn to sequence, and develop auditory memory.
• Speech skills, speech sound production, oro-motor skills

Makaton
Learning to sign has many benefits for children with Down's syndrome. This includes helping them understand spoken language, and communicate their needs and wants.

Children with Down's syndrome frequently have delayed speech and language skills, associated with low muscle tone, and poor coordination skills which may affect the muscles needed for speech.  Children with Down's syndrome often learn signs before spoken words.  Using sign helps them understand verbal language and develop interaction skills, giving them an alternative medium to support and/or develop spoken words to communicate effectively with people.

Reading
Children with Down's syndrome often have a strength in visual learning and consequently are introduced to reading at an early age. This is then used to emphasises the visual presentation of language and develop their spoken language skills building up their sentence length using sentence starters and cues.  At Sparkles children are introduced to motivating words and the concept of reading ready for school.  This is often consolidated and worked on in conjunction with the Down's syndrome Specialist Teaching Service and Portage Workers. Children frequently go on to develop these foundation skills once at school. 

selecting his name in the hello routine	waving 'bye' in the goodbye routine
picture matching	signing
requesting a turn by signing 'me' under the table	selecting and communicating how she is feeling by reading 'I'm feeling happy'