STORIES AND DISCUSSION WITH KEY WORD SIGNERS

This event is all about learning from young people with severe learning difficulties who have problems communicating in speech. We will explore the many creative ways that we have seen them using gestures and Key Word Sign (eg.Makaton, Signalong and Làmh). Teachers and Speech and Language Therapists often focus on individual sign learning , but careful observation shows that our students are capable of so much more than this. We will demonstrate how they tell stories in conversation, holding the floor and asserting themselves, and actively engaging in discussion. Supporting these skills means abandoning our preconceptions about their capabilities and being open to learning from and with them as co-producers of dialogue. Led by SLT Charlotte Parkhouse and teacher Gareth Smith (Communicapers https://www.communicapers.co.uk) and Nicola Grove the originator of Storysharing® (www.storysharing.org.uk). We are drawing on original research first presented in the groundbreaking 2019 publication Manual Sign Acquisition in Children with Developmental Disabilities, now available in paperback and individual chapter purchase at https://novapublishers.com/shop/manual-sign-acquisition-in-children-with-developmental-disabilities/