'Funding for children's speech and language has been sorely lacking'

What happens during pregnancy and early childhood has a fundamental impact on a child’s future. Central to that is speaking and understanding language, which are crucial for everything we do: making friends, learning, good mental health, getting a job.

That’s why I CAN, the children’s communication charity, is calling on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to place support for speaking and understanding at the heart of this week’s Spending Review.

We learnt at the weekend that there is to be investment into early years and notably for new Family Hubs to provide more integrated support for families. We believe that support for speaking and understanding language must play a central role in any new early years initiative.

From helping parents to understand just how important talking and understanding language are and their role in helping babies and children develop these skills; to training early years professionals so they have the right skills to support children in this area; to ensuring early years professionals can monitor and track progress so that children who need support with their speech, language and communication can get help early.

And the types of help that are available for children with delayed language are relatively inexpensive but have significant impact. At I CAN, programmes like our Early Talk Boost, a series of special activities for nursery-aged children to do in groups with an adult, help the majority of children to improve their speaking and understanding, with almost two thirds catching up with their peers completely after just nine weeks.

Assessment of and support for children’s speaking and understanding must also be on a long-term basis, starting in the early years and continuing across all age ranges. Educators working with all age groups need to understand how to encourage children’s speaking and understanding skills to develop and how to identify those who are struggling.This has become even more apparent over the past 18 months.

Our latest report, Speaking Up for the Covid Generation highlighted serious risks to the Covid generation, revealing that as many as 1.5 million children are at risk of not being able to speak or understand language at an age-appropriate level. We are pleased to see the Government has recognised some of these challenges and has invested £17m in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) for reception-age children. However, if the Government is serious in its ambitions to Build Back Better to make sure that outcomes are improved UK-wide, this spending review must ensure that this type of support is available across all ages. 

More widely, recovery from Covid will be long-term, and historically funding for speaking and understanding has been sorely lacking. Future Governments need to make sure that speaking and understanding language are more central to our early years education system for years to come. The Government needs to commit to creating a cross departmental children’s speech, language, and communications strategy to make sure children can get the right help at the right time.

We know that children in the early years with underdeveloped skills in speaking and understanding are at much greater risk of poorer life outcomes including mental health and employability. It will be a national disgrace if we do not ensure that more support is given to children, of all ages, with their speaking and understanding. If we don't, we will be failing them. How can a child do well in nursery, at school, make friends or find a job if they do not have these vital skills?