0-5 years advice and activities

Learning to communicate is complex and relies on the development of lots of different skills. These individual skills can be grouped together under the headings of Early communication (social) skills, Language (talking) skills and Speech skills.

Children don’t necessarily develop these skills in a set order, however in Speech and Language Therapy we understand the importance of children having a good foundation of early communication skills, on top of which they can then develop their language skills, before progressing on to refine their speech sounds.

As there are lots of different skills, there are different strategies that can be used to support young children in developing their speech, language and communication. See the links below for information on communication development and ideas of ways families and professionals can support young children everyday in developing their communication skills.