Speech, Language and Communication Needs Joint ...

7% of children at school entry will have significant speech, language or communication needs which will
not improve without specialist intervention as part of the team working with the child, including the
parents. Children in this category can be expected to have long term needs but their access to learning
can be improved with appropriate support. These children have SLCN which are associated with an
underlying speech, language and communication impairment or as a secondary issue associated with
other learning disability or complex needs. The prevalence in this group is not correlated with
socio-economic factors or disadvantage.
In Rochdale this equates to 176 children across the Borough per school year.
Using population estimates 2009 figures, this would equate to 176 five year old children across Rochdale
borough with significant difficulties with speech and/or language. This figure would increase to 193 five
year old children based on 2013 population projections.
Based on 15 years of schooling, potentially there could be, in 2013 as many as 2,895 children and
young people with significant difficulties with speech and/or language.
According to Bercow, in the most disadvantaged areas of England, approximately 50% of children and
young people have speech and language skills that are significantly below those expected for their age.
At school entry, low income children lag behind their middle income counterparts by nearly one year in
vocabulary. At the age of six, there is a gap of a few months between the reading age of children who
had good oral language skills at aged five, and those who had poor oral language skills. By the time they
are 14, this gap has widened to five years’ difference (Office of the Communication Champion, 2010).
Given the level of deprivation in Rochdale, it is not unreasonable to take the 50% estimate as a guide to
the potential levels of SLCN in the pre-school population which are not necessarily linked into long term
underlying impairment and may be expected to respond to the appropriate universal and targeted
support.
Using population estimates 2009, it is estimated that there were 8,560 children in the 0-5 age group
who would have benefited from universal and targeted support in order to minimise the risks of
long term SLCN; this number could increase to approximately 8,810 by 2013.
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