Angharad Welch on Child-Led Interactions

Angharad Welch has been a Speech and Language Therapist for 18 years and worked independently for two of those. Her background is an NHS Therapist, heavily Early Years-based, starting in SureStart and then moving into Early Years complex needs and feeding, right from birth – with premature and medically complex babies.

Angharad’s business ‘Find the Key speech and language therapy’ is aimed mostly at supporting mainstream SENCOs and settings. She has recorded podcasts for The SENDcast, spoken for BSquared, delivered training for ICAN and Elklan, and delivered a seminar at the TES SEND show this year.

In this interview, Angharad describes a ‘child-led’ interaction and explains why these are critical for children’s learning and development – especially when it comes to speech, language and communication – and how this supports children’s natural developmental instincts.

Angharad also has some great strategies for supporting and helping children who may have more complex communication needs. We also discuss how child-led play is one of the most powerful ‘interventions’ that we can provide for children. She quotes Dr Treisman that ‘every interaction is an intervention’ and explains that is how all communication starts.

Links:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/findthekeyslt
Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/talkslcn
Instagram: www.instagram.com/findthekeyslt1/
Twitter: twitter.com/findthekeyslt
Website: findthekeyslt.co.uk
The blog post Angharad discusses in the intervire: findthekeyslt.co.uk/p/blog?p=child-led-play-the-best-early-years-language-intervention-and-heres-why
Angharad on Sendcast: https://www.thesendcast.com/communication-friendly-environments/
Details of Intensive Interaction: https://www.intensiveinteraction.org/find-out-more/history/

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