Skip to content

Who we support

Children and young people 0 - 25

We work with children and young people aged 0 – 25 years old with communication and autism needs and / or SLCN. The child or young person might not have a diagnosis but might:

  • have difficulty with social communication and interaction
  • have difficulty with spoken language and/or understanding of language
  • seek repetitive routines
  • have a strong interest in particular subjects
  • struggle to access the curriculum (the subjects studied at school)
  • have sensory needs or sensitivities

What is autism?

What are speech, language and communication needs (SLCN)?

Parents and carers

  • We provide Early Years (ages 0-5) autism training and techniques for parents and carers to help them support their child at home in preparation for education
  • We work closely with parents and carers when providing advice and guidance for schools

Schools and education providers

We work with professionals to provide advice and guidance to schools and help them support children and young people with speech, language, communication and autism needs. We draw on a range of recognised approaches such as Elklan, the Autism Education Trust, SCERTS, TEACCH, and Attention Autism. We also offer targeted training to schools to help them improve the support they offer for children with speech, language, communication and autism needs.

How to request support

Parents

For help at school, you can speak to your SENCO about SEN support. You won't be able to request our support yourself, but our service can be accessed by your school.

Schools

For advice or training to support a child or young person where their needs significantly impact on their access to education, to develop a classroom strategy or adapt curriculum approaches, complete a service request form (PDF 312kb) Opens in a new window and email it to your area's team.   

For training and whole-school support to develop provision for children and young people with SLCN or social communication and autism needs, please contact your area Speech, Language, Communication and Autism Lead Teacher.

Opening in a new window

Our expectations

We'd expect a school or other education provider to do everything they can to ensure your child or young person has the opportunity to progress and access the same learning as their classmates. This is known as reasonable adjustments.

That might include:

  • quiet working areas and sensory breaks
  • regular opportunities and support to develop social/language skills
  • flexible approaches to the timetable, including break and lunchtimes
  • arrangements to make taking exams easier
  • the use of visual supports for classroom teaching and learning (e.g. visual timetables and now and next boards and other visual prompts)
  • making changes to the classwork to make learning easier
  • adapting language to make communication more accessible
  • the use of multi-sensory approaches

When a child or young person needs more specialist support, we'd expect a range of approaches which may include:

  • specialist training for support staff such as Teaching Assistants
  • additional support plans for your child eg.individual education plans, risk assessments, pen profiles 
  • organisations all working together to support your child

What other support is available?

The neurodiversity hub is an advice service offering support, signposting and guidance about a whole range of things including ADHD, Autism, distressed behaviours, anxiety and school.

SENDIASS provide an impartial information service for parents, carers and young people.

The Children and Young People’s (CYP) Speech and Language Therapy service offers a child- and family-centred approach to support CYP with speech, language, communication needs (SLCN)

The Autism Education Trust aims to improve educational access, experience and outcomes for autistic children and young people.

 

Page was last updated on: 26/02/2024 09:56:47

Cookies

Like many other websites, we place small information files called 'cookies' on your computer.

Why do we use cookies?

To remember your settings, for example your language and location. This means you don’t have to keep entering these details when you visit a new page.

To find out how you use the site to help us update and improve it.

How do I change my cookie settings?

You can change the settings of your web browser so that it won’t accept cookies. For more information visit AboutCookies.org.

But, doing this may stop you from using some of the online features and services on this website. 

Cookies we use

Cookies do a lot of different jobs, and we use 2 types of cookies:

Required functionality cookies – these cookies are essential for the website to work.

Performance and feature cookies – these cookies help to improve the performance and feel of this website, for example providing you with personalised services.


Take a look at a list of cookies we use on our website:

NameTypeHow we use itHow long we use the information for

ASP.Net_Sessions

 

Required functionality

An automatic cookie set by our software. 

Just for the time you are on our website.

ServerID

 

Required functionality

An automatic cookie set by our software. 

Just for the time you are on our website.

_ga

Required functionality

To track the effectiveness of our website using Google Analytics. 

2 years

saved-pages

Performance and feature

To save the pages that you visit by clicking the heart at the top of the page. 

1 month

geoPostcode

Performance and feature

This stores your postcode (or partial postcode) when we ask you for your location.

Just for the time you are on our website or 30 days (you choose this).

geoCoordinates

Performance and feature

This stores your location as a pair of latitude / longitude coordinates.

Just for the time you are on our website or 30 days (you choose this).

reckonerName-history

Performance and feature

This keeps a history of all answers submitted to the ready reckoner.

This is set in the control for each ready reckoner. If you haven't interacted with the ready reckoner for the set amount of days, the cookies are deleted.

reckonerName-content

Performance and feature

This keeps a history of what content cards are clicked on when using the ready reckoner.

This is set in the control for each ready reckoner. If you haven't interacted with the ready reckoner for the set amount of days, the cookies are deleted.

SQ_SYSTEM_SESSION

Required functionality

This used to track user sessions on forms hosted on eservices.hertfordshire.gov.uk

Just for the time you are on our website.


Third party cookies

There are links and content from other sites and services on our website. These sites and services set their own cookies.

Below are a list of cookies that the other sites and services use:

Service namePurposeMore information

Google analytics (_utma/b/c/z)

These are used to compile reports for us on how people use this site.

Cookies of the same names are also used for the same purpose by other websites such as Building FuturesCountryside Management Service and Hertfordshire LIS.

Visit the Google Analytics website for more information about the cookies they use.

You can prevent data from being collected and used by Google Analytics by installing Google's Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Google Translation - googtrans

This cookie is used to remember which language to translate each page into if you have chosen to do so.

It expires at the end of your browser session.

Bing

We use a Bing cookie to track the success of our marketing campaigns and make them more efficient.

Visit Bing to find out more about their cookies.

Google

We use a Google cookie to track the success of our marketing campaigns and make them more efficient.

Visit Google to find out more about their cookies.

Facebook

We have a number of presences on Facebook, which we may link to. Facebook may set some of its own cookies if you follow these links.

Visit Facebook to find out more about their cookies.

Twitter

We have a number of presences and feeds on Twitter, which you may wish to follow or read from this website. Twitter may set some of its own cookies.

Visit Twitter to find out more about their cookies.

YouTube

We have a YouTube channel, which we may link to. YouTube may set some of its own cookies if you follow those links.

Visit YouTube to find out more about their cookies.

Netloan

This ASP.NET_Sessionid cookie is essential for the Netloan secure online payments website to work, and is set when you arrive to the site. This cookie is deleted when you close your browser.

 

HotJar

This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels.

Visit HotJar to find out more about their cookies.

Siteimprove

These cookies are set to help us report on how people are using the site so we can improve it.

Visit Siteimprove to learn more about their cookies.