A one day workshop for parents and carers of young children with limited communication. The group will learn ways to communicate and interact with their nonspeaking child while supporting their communication development.

No diagnosis is required to join this group. Please note unfortunately children are not able to attend these sessions.

Where: Knowle West Media Centre, Leinster Avenue, Bristol BS4 1NL

When: The session will run from 9.45am until 2.15pm and lunch will be provided.

Content

Communication Basics: How to support early communication and strategies to encourage comprehension and communication.

Attention: Children need to learn to develop attention before they can learn to communicate we will look at strategies for improving attention including a brief overview of Attention Autism.

Using Visual Aids: Visual information is much easier for people to understand and using visual aids to support understanding is very important we will cover different types of visual aids and how to use them.

Alternative Communication: Speech is not a requirement for communication. We will look at different communication methods such as Makaton and The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS).

Facilitators

Jade Page - Jade is the Parent Support & Training Manager at Bristol Autism Support, she also runs The Autism Page website. Jade has a wealth of experiencing supporting her two young son's who have speech difficulties.

Christina Morgan - Christina has been a BAS parent support volunteer for the past two years and is also the BAS Finance Manager. She has an autistic son and has experience as a teaching assistant in an autism-specialist school.

What people have said about this course:

"All the information shared was very relevant to me and I have been able to use this immediately, the presenters had real knowledge, some of the courses I have attended have been too theoretical and just don't work - you both get it!"

"It's so nice to connect with parents dealing with similar issues with their kids."

This group is funded by a grant from NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB

Communicating with your non-speaking child