Early Speech, Language and Communication Development: Which Factors are Associated with Better or Poorer Outcomes?: Summary

'…improving environmental protective factors can lead to significant expansion in the acquisitionof speech, language, and communication skills in infants… Interventions focused on supporting families to optimize home learning environments and enabling improvements in environmental protective factors, are key and even children with a poor start to life can catch up…'

Cronin, P. and Goodall, S. (2021)

Research tells us that helping parents to understand the long-term benefits of responsive interactions with their child from the earliest stage of development is key. Some parents may need extra support and guidance with this, highlighting the necessity for both universal messaging and targeted support.

Additionally, the early years workforce (pre-birth to five) will need support to understand the factors associated with future SLC risks, and how to best help parents within their existing routine contacts and pathways.

To reduce early SLC concerns, a secondary prevention approach should be in place for children affected by conditions linked to poorer outcomes, as described within this paper. This requires identifying opportunities to strengthen awareness and application of key SLC messaging for those families and the workforce using existing policy frameworks and services delivery approaches.

With the right conditions, it is possible to change early SLC outcomes for our bumps, infants, and young children across Scotland.