AET Progression Framework

The AET Progression Framework is intended to assist practitioners in identifying areas where autistic pupils may require additional support, so that specific programmes can be planned and implemented. It can also provide evidence of the effectiveness of such support. It is recommended that, where possible, discussions about learning needs, interventions and progress involve the pupil, their parents or carers and all those who work with them. 

Free to download

Afasic

Afasic produces free downloads with vital information for parents and professionals about talking, understanding language and getting the right help. They offer free downloads, free parent support days and workshops, and useful links to mobile apps and other support

Free resources on website

ASQ

ASQ The Ages and Stages Questionnaire provides developmental and social-emotional screening for children between birth and age 6.

$295.00 for an ASQ3 Material kit

Attention Autism

Attention Autism is an intervention model which aims to develop natural and spontaneous communication through the use of visually based and highly motivating activities.

Free resources on website.

Attention and Listening skills programme 

The Attention and Listening skills programme is a training package developed by Bury Educational Psychology Service: https://theburydirectory.co.uk/services/educational-psychology-service, which includes staff training and a colour coded activity pack, which practitioners can use to plan group sessions around developing joint, sustained and focussed attention. The programme highlights the importance of early attention skills for learning, language, play and social development and supports Early Years Practitioners’ understanding of attention skills and strategies and group activities they may use to develop young children’s attention skills (2-6 years).   

Contact Bury EPS, edpsych@bury.gov.uk, for further information on their training package and intervention delivery.

Autism in the Early Years

Autism in the Early Years: A Practical Guide a practical resource which includes an Observation Profile for early interaction, communication and play skills which can be used to baseline and monitor skill development over time. 

£28.99 plus P&P

Bear Cards and Feelings Visuals

Using Bear Cards or feelings visuals can support children to gain a better understanding of emotions.

Bear Cards: £24

Feelings Visuals: free with school subscription

Bell Foundation

The Bell Foundation have an EAL assessment framework that can be useful for assessing children new to English.

Free

Black Sheep

Black Sheep Resources for teachers and speech and language therapists working with children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and speech, language & communication needs (SLCN). Speech Sound Inventory for phonology screeners.

Individual resources from £5.

Primary Bundle, £1796.00

BLAST (Boosting Language, Auditory Skills and Talking)

The BLAST programme (Boosting Language Auditory Skills and Talking) can be used with children aged 3-5. BLAST 1 is designed for all children in nursery aged from 3-4. BLAST 2 is designed for all children in reception aged from 4-5. There are 30 consecutive sessions fully planned and resourced to deliver to a group of 4-8 children.

£215 per pack.

£20 per place online training course.

Boardmaker

Boardmaker provides a wide range of symbol-based communication and visual supports which can be used around the environment, for displays and to create visual timetables.  

Tiered pricing depending on number of installations and packages.

Inclusive Solutions offer a 1 year subscription for multiple users to Boardmaker Online for £585. 

Boardmaker V6 is available for £203 and allows for two installations.

Brick by Brick Programme

The Brick by Brick programme by Play Included uses Lego to develop social connection and interaction and is recommended for use with autistic children rather than Lego Therapy.

Building Friendships is a free whole-class resource for schools, to help develop social and emotional learning through collaborative LEGO® Play.

BVPS

British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BVPS) can be used to assess vocabulary development and identify any delay in language development.

£261 for the test kit and £20 for additional record forms

Bury Speech and Language Therapy Service

The Paediatric Community Speech and Language Therapy Team  provides treatment, support and care for children who have difficulties with communication, or with eating, drinking and swallowing. Requests for assessments can be made by parents, GPs, Health Visitors, School Nurses, Paediatricians, Special Educational Needs Coordinators or other professionals involved with the child.

Free – referral based.

Request form

Bury Inclusion Service

The Inclusion Service provide outreach support to schools to help them meet children’s special educational needs.

Free

CAMHS

CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) offer specialist mental health support to children and young people experiencing difficulties with their mental health in Bury.

Referral based service, free at the point of access.

Can Do Music

Can Do Music is a programme for children aged 3-5 to develop communication and interaction.

Free resources on website.

£90 for full day training.

Chatting with Children (ICAN)

Chatting with Children (ICAN) - An activity pack to promote communication development of children from three to five years old.

£12.00

Circle of Friends

Circle of Friends is an approach to enhancing the inclusion, in a mainstream setting, of any child who is experiencing difficulties in school because of disability, personal crisis or because of their challenging behaviour towards others. Circle of Friends works by mobilising the child’s peers to provide support and engage in problem solving with the person in difficulty. This intervention is aimed at children and young people aged 5 to 18 years.

Creating Circle of Friends Book £10.99.

Contact Bury EPS, edpsych@bury.gov.uk for further information on their training package and intervention delivery.

Colourful Semantics

Colourful semantics is an approach aimed at helping children to develop their grammar, by linking the structure of a sentence (syntax) and its meaning (semantics).

Free download.

Colourful Stories (ELKLAN)

Colourful Stories (ELKLAN) is a visual support strategy which helps children to learn about the structure of stories and become more confident about telling and writing stories.  Colourful Stories encourages oral narrative sills and introduces written words only when the child is confident about the structure of a story and how to tell a story orally.

£25 plus VAT and P&P.

Communication Trust

The Communication Trust offer a range of information and tools to enable practitioners to improve their practice, many of which are free to download. Their resources include the communication development pyramid and the communication friendly environment checklist. Staff can be trained in the pyramid and to understand how to adapt their communication cues so that they can ‘step up’ or ‘step down’ with a child as necessary.

Universally Speaking resources can be found here.

Free

Coventry Grid

Coventry Grid – Grid to help explore autism and/or attachment related needs

Free

DLD and Me

https://www.dldandme.co.uk/  information on developmental language disorder

Free resources on website.

EAL Assessment Framework

EAL Assessment Framework This assessment tool can be useful in assessing skills and proficiency in English and monitoring progress the progress of children who are learning English as an Additional Language (EAL).

Free

Elklan

Elklan have a range of courses to suit you whether you are an early years worker, teacher or assistant working with children with Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN). Their courses can enable you to develop the speech and language skills of ALL children but especially those with speech and language difficulties. Delivered by local tutors throughout the UK they give practical advice and strategies that are also suitable for children with English as an additional language and other special educational needs.

Elklan courses are run locally by the Speech and Language Therapy Service. Courses run regularly throughout the year and can also delivered for individual schools. Please discuss training with your Link SLT.

Friendship Terrace

Friendship Terrace is a series of sessions to reflect on and teach friendship skills, for children who find making and keeping friendships difficult and for children with an autistic spectrum disorder.

£37

Green Zone Communication Book

The Green Zone Conversation Book – Jessica Kingsley Publishers - UK (jkp.com) This book provides a simple visual model to help children with autism experience more success in finding common ground in conversation.

£16.99

Hello framework (National Literacy Trust)

The Helping Early Language and Literacy Outcomes (HELLO) improvement framework is a quality improvement tool for early years settings who want to improve their communication, language and literacy provision.

The self-evaluation framework provides prompts, critical questions and resources to help settings identify their strengths and areas for development.

Requires an account to access free materials.

£100 per school annually to access premium CPD and resources.

Hungry Little Minds (DfE)  

DfE Hungry Little Minds provides simple and fun activities for 0-5 year old to increase adult-child interactions. Includes video clips and is broken down into 5 age bands. 

Free resources on website. 

ICAN

ICAN children’s communication charity offering resources and training to support children with communication needs

Free resources on website.

Identiplay

The Identiplay intervention helps children on the autistic spectrum, and those with specific communication disorders, learn to play. Through the use of play scripts, the approach promotes the development of social skills, understanding, imagination and exploration. By learning these skills, the child can enjoy reciprocal play with an adult or peer. The new edition of this popular book includes: - More on developing your own scripts - How to assess the child’s current play skills - The adult s role in play - The use of visual/verbal support - New case studies - New scripts - Advice on taking learning outdoors - Links to resources and useful websites A supporting CD ROM contains video clips of the intervention in practice, printable scripts and a PowerPoint presentation to facilitate professional training.

£30

Intensive Interaction

Intensive Interaction  is an approach designed to help develop pre-communication skills such as joint attention through sensory and shared joy activities.

Can be delivered with no resources, but a range of resources can be purchased from £10 - £100.

Jabber Jacks

JabberJacks provide a targeted intervention to develop EYFS children’s speech and language and through the fun music and physical activities, the sessions also help develop their gross motor skills to an expected level for that age group.

10-week course of Jabberjacks sessions as part of classroom delivery for up to 20 children - £700.

Language Builders

Language Builders is a resource that provides detailed advice and activities to promote the communication skills of all primary school children. The resources are accessible to parents, learning support assistants and teachers.

£24

Language for Thinking

Language for Thinking  - an approach to develop the verbal reasoning and thinking skills of children aged 4-11 through drawings and written scenarios with questions.

One day training currently £1100 plus expenses.

Language Link (Infant)

Infant Language Link can be used to support children (4-8 years old) with mild to moderate language and communication needs and those new to English. The pack contains 500 colourful resources, 12 planned termly language groups, 24 individual teaching plans and 52 handouts for parents.

£425 for first year, £275 subsequent years.

Looking and Thinking

Looking and Thinking workbooks to develop verbal reasoning skills. Photocopiable worksheets including illustrations and differentiated question prompts. To support children with delayed language skills or have English as an additional language.

£79 for books 1-5 in print.

£95 for books 1-5 in PDF.

Makaton

Makaton A language programme that uses symbols and signs alongside speech.

Products range from £7 - £40. Full collection available for £325.

NELI

NELI (Nuffield Early Language Intervention, Reception aged) is a programme for children in Reception (4-5 years) which has been found to improve children's language and early literacy skills.

DfE funded programme for State-funded schools in England with reception pupils in EIA (Education Investment Areas) areas, or those with the highest FSM rates who have not received NELI previously, can register for the DfE funded NELI programme in 2022/23.

Object of Reference

An Object of Reference is used to represent an activity and help the child visualise it.

Free: description.

PECS

PECS [Picture Exchange Communication System] - an alternative, augmentative communication system in which simple picture cards are used to communicate simple needs initially but work towards more complex sentence structures.

£65 for training manual.

Additional products £5 - £50.

PIVATS

PIVATS (Performance Indicators for Valued Assessment and Targeted Learning) provides a structured approach to assessing, planning for learning, tracking and measuring small steps of attainment, focusing within the PIVATS structure on small steps within the P scales up to the revised national curriculum Year 4 age related expectations.

Pivats 5^th Edition Folder: £120 for Lancashire schools

PODD (Pragmatic Organisation Dynamic Display)

PODD is a book or device that contains symbols and words to support communication between people with complex communication needs and their communication partners (family, friends or teaching staff).

Software bundles to create communication books start from £199

Progression in Language Structures

Progression in Language Structures is a document for identifying how content learning can be built on language structures.  Language structures are presented in sentence starters for different text types, for example, the language of explanations and how it can be structured from foundation stage through to Year 6.

£13.99 (excluding VAT).

Proloquo2Go

Proloquo2Go. Children, teens and adults who cannot speak can use this Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) app for iOS as a daily communication tool and to build language skills. From the first time someone opens the app, a few taps are all it takes to start talking to the world.

£250

Quality Circle Time 

Quality Circle Time helps children to develop their social, attention and listening skills. Additional adult support should be used to support group work (e.g. one adult leading, with another adult supporting the children’s engagement). 

Range of resources from £5.99-79.95. 

Racing to English

Racing to English have some useful activities to support children who are new to English.

£45 + £5 postage

Raising Awareness of DLD

RADLD | Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder gives free information and fact sheets about Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), as well as a range of helpful resources

Free resources on website

R-Time

R-Time is a structured programme that builds and enhances relationships for children from Early Years to the end of Primary School.

£75 main manual.

£3 - £35 for additional resources.

Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists

The RCSLT support speech and language therapists by providing leadership, setting professional standards, facilitating research and promoting better education and training.

Various training opportunities – some free and delivered online.

Sea Bridges

An online curriculum for for staff working with neurodivergent and autistic children aged 5-10 years. 40 ready make workshops focusing on communication skills and self-advocacy.

Can access a free 7 day trial

Free resources available

Selective Mutism Manual

The Selective Mutism Manual is a comprehensive and practical manual that is grounded in behavioural psychology and anxiety management and draws on relevant research findings as well as the authors' extensive clinical experience to provide guidance for the Early Years through to adolescence.  

£56.99

Sensory Dinosaurs

Sensory Dinosaurs includes stories alongside practical strategies to develop understanding of sensory processing and neurodiversity. A short description of a sensory/motor condition precedes each story and is followed with a worksheet for the child and supporting adult to work through (covers Developmental Coordination Disorder; Dyspraxia/proprioception; Sensory processing/Sensory Integration Disorder; Autism; Self Esteem Issues; Joint hypermobility; Dyslexia; and, Balance difficulties).

29.99

Signalong

Signalong is a key word sign-supported communication system. It uses speech, sign, body language, facial expression and voice tone to link between sign and spoken word.

£22 - £60 per vocabulary bundle.

Sliding in Technique

The ‘Sliding in Technique’ is a process that can be used to support a child to talk in front of new people, using a gradual process of the new person ‘sliding in’.

Free

Social Communication Fix

Social Communication Fix is a programme that uses scripts and images to aid communication, develops understanding of body language and facial expressions that comes with pre and post assessments.

£75

Social Detectives

Social Detectives (comic book that offers different ways that can be reviewed repeatedly with students to teach them how to develop their own social detective skills.)

£25 plus P&P from US.

Socially Speaking

Socially Speaking will help you to introduce and practise skills your child’s need to develop and maintain relationships and to lead independent lives outside the school context. It is a social skills programme that lasts a whole school year and is divided into three units: let’s communicate, let’s be friends, and let’s practise. It is suitable for 7–11 years and young people with SEN.

£20.

Speaking and Listening through Narrative

Speaking and Listening through Narrative is a useful intervention to support the development of oral language skills.

£ 72 + VAT

SULP (Social Use of Language Program)

SULP [Social Use of Language Program] is a framework for personal, emotional and social development from a communication and thinking skills perspective, providing multisensory activity sequences with interactive stories.

Free video links on website.

Superflex® A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum

A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum provides educators, parents and therapists ways to teach children with social and communication difficulties (undiagnosed or diagnosed, such as Asperger’s syndrome, ADHD, high-functioning autism or similar). The three-part cognitive behavioural curriculum helps children to develop further awareness of their own thinking and social behaviours and learn strategies to help them develop better self-regulation across a range of behaviours. The curriculum works best with primary school children as well as with less developmentally mature young people who respond to visual books.

£47.60.

TALC

The TALC (Test of Abstract Language Comprehension) was designed to help speech and language therapists, education staff and the wider workforce to assess and develop the verbal reasoning skills of all under 5s and primary aged children who experience difficulty understanding what is said to them.

£45 plus P&P

Tales Toolkit

Tales Toolkit – Online package of training and resources to develop children’s skills in story development and sequencing in small groups.

£800

TalkAbout

Talkabout is a complete programme for developing self-esteem, social and friendship skills.

£10 - £40 per book

Talk Boost

The Talk Boost KS1 Intervention Pack includes everything you need to run I CAN's interactive, evidence-based intervention for 4-7-year olds. Talk Boost KS1 is a target driven programme for children with delayed speech and language, with proven results.

£500

Talk for Writing

Talk for Writing is a teaching framework that enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own version.

One day training with a school or small cluster (from 9am to 3.30pm) costs £1250 plus expenses for up to 50 delegates. If numbers exceed 50, then there is an additional fee of £50 per person. A day’s consultancy from 9am to 3.30pm costs £850 plus expenses.

Resources £5 - £30 per book.

Talking Boxes

The Talking Boxes resources can be used to make boxes containing items focused around a particular topic or theme. There are session plans and lists of equipment to make up your own personalised box (or a bag if you prefer).

Free download

Talking Maths

Talking Maths is a 10-week intervention programme which targets speaking and listening skills in the context of mathematical language.

EY – KS3 bundle, £45.

Talking Points Progress Checker (ICAN)

These Talking Point Progress Checkers have been written by speech and language therapists, based on typical developmental milestones from 6 months – 11 years. Their resources can help you identify signs of a child who is struggling to communicate, and ensure they get the support they need.

Free

TEACCH

The TEACCH approach aims to respond to the needs of autistic people using the best available approaches and methods known so far, for educating and teaching autonomy. It is not a single method and can be used alongside other approaches.

Free guidance on website.

Teaching Children to Listen

Specialist speech and language therapists Liz Spooner and Jacqui Woodcock present resources and activities to develop children's key listening skills, as well as a rating scale to assess children on each of the four rules of good listening. This book offers advice on using these findings to inform individual education plans and offer 40 games to encourage children to become good listeners.

£24.99

Time to Talk

Time to Talk has been specifically created to teach and develop social interaction skills and improve oral language skills for children aged 4 - 6 years old. Time to talk contains over 40 sessions which are designed for children who will be seen two to three times each week. The book will also help teachers to develop the basis of interaction with the help of a friendly and approachable character, Ginger the Bear who is a core feature in all of the activities.

£17 - £25.

Workbook available to buy in a variety of places.

Toddler Talk (From ICAN)

Toddler Talk - An activity pack to promote communication development of toddlers from 18 months to 3 years old.

£9.99

Topsy Page (Philosophy for Children)

A range of resources to support the development of effective child talk. Topsy also offers a Talk Audit where she will visit your school and analyse child and teacher talk, then provide recommendations.

£300 for a two-day training course.

Contact for school package prices.

Transporters

Transporters is a fun video series to help autistic children understand the causes of emotions, and the facial expressions that go with them.

£24 provides immediate access to 15 episodes to stream online

Twinkl

Twinkl has a wide resource pool for a range of curriculum and wellbeing resources.

Subscriptions from £4.49 - £8.49 per month

Wellcomm

WellComm Early Years and the new WellComm Primary toolkits enable you to identify children needing speech and language support and comes with an age-appropriate ‘Big Book of Ideas’ providing a total of around 150 instant, play-based activities.

£449 - EY or Primary full set, £799 EY and Primary

Widgit

Widgit provides a wide range of symbols which can be used to signpost around the classroom environment, for displays and to create visual timetables.

Widgit Essentials Bundle has tiered pricing depending on the number of installations. £289 – 1 installation.

Up to £1449 for 30 installations.

Word Aware

Word Aware is a structured whole school approach to promote the vocabulary development of all children.

One day training currently £1100 plus expenses.

Zones of Regulation

Zones of Regulation is an intervention that supports the development of self-regulation and emotional control.

Free resources on website.

Contact Bury EPS, edpsych@bury.gov.uk, for further information on their training package and intervention delivery.