More than words:Hello October

The Hello theme for October is 'more than just words'. Often people don't realise that Speech and language therapists work with people who don't talk or have little speech.  Check out  http://www.communicationmatters.org.uk/ where you will find  information on methods of communication which can be used to supplement the more usual methodsof speech and writing. These methods are called Augmentative and Alternative Communication, or AAC for short.

Communication Matters is a UK wide organisation and helps people of all ages and ability who need to use AAC.

They are supporting a range of exciting AAC events and activities across the UK, linked to the 'Hello'campaign in the National Year of Communication.

Communication Matters is leading a groundbreaking research project to gather evidence about theneed and provision of AAC, and is also involved in developing and publishing National Standards for AAC services. We have been in touch with the project co-ordinator and will be featuring the conclusions of this project in a future edition of S & L World:the global bulletin for SLT/SLP

Would you like to be your own boss as a Smart Talkers franchisee?

All children can benefit from our award winning pre-school communication groups. They are designed to help develop confident, successful communicators. Spoken language skills are the basis for most educational tasks so the better the speech, language and communication skills the easier they will find it when they start school.

We use puppets, games, stories and songs to make it as fun as possible. We get great feedback from parents, carers and the children themselves! It's not really like working, as it's tremendous fun working with pre-school children.

We are looking for franchisees in many areas of the UK or further afield. No experience or qualification required as full training is given. Business support and back-up is an important part of the package

See www.smarttalkers.org.uk for more information or check out our video.