Preferred outcomes – children’s views
Researchers: Sue Roulstone, Jane Coad and Helen Hambly
University of the West of England
We ran seven workshops in special and mainstream schools
around the UK to ask children with SLCN about their lives,
what’s important to them and their goals for the future.
Workshops involved arts activities and were attended by
children from 8 to 16 years with a range of communication
impairments, including Primary Language Impairment,
Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Landau Kleffner Syndrome.
We also held a workshop in Leeds with a group of 8
children and young people to check and further explore
findings from the first seven workshops.
Workshop activities were informed by the Appreciative
Inquiry method and centred around two questions:
‘What’s good?’ and ‘What could be better?’
Children’s and young people’s views on what’s good:
-
Their families, pets and favourite things.
Pets were very important to younger children
particularly. All children and young people had
hobbies and toys that were important to them,
these commonly included swimming, horse riding,
computer games, footballers and films. Younger
children talked proudly about the hobbies and
sports they were good at.
-
Laughter
Laughing and joking with friends, family and
teachers was valued by children and young people
of all ages and frequently talked about by older
ones.
-
The people around them for help and support
This included their mums and dads, their teachers at
school and their friends.
-
Activities with others
Social activities with friends and family, such as
bowling trips, brownies and playing football with
friends were often talked about with animation.
People say to me
‘I can’t hear you’
or ‘I don’t
understand you’.
I hate this.
I’d like to be a
faster talker
and be good at
listening
Teachers are
nice to me
and joke with
me
Children’s and young people’s views on what could be
better:
-
Other people
Children and young people talked about family
members and teachers interrupting them, shouting
at them as if they can’t hear, not listening to them
and not understanding them. They also talked
about friends and siblings teasing them. They felt
very little control over these.
-
Feeling angry
Older children and young people talked a lot about
how angry they felt, both towards other people for
reasons mentioned above and frustration or anger
towards themselves.
-
Their talking and listening and their school work
Younger children talked about how they would like
to be better at different aspects of their talking and
listening, such as talking faster, getting words out
and not interrupting. Older children and young
people tended to talk more about how they would
like to be better at exams or reading or specific
school subjects. When asked about their targets set
down by their teachers at school, children and
young people did not seem to be interested in
meeting them and sometimes did not know what
they were.
-
Making friends
Several children and young people talked about the
difficulties they had with their friendships. They
talked about how they would like to make and keep
friends more easily and some of the tensions they
felt when teased by friends.
Children’s and young people’s hopes for the future:
Young children spoke very little about the future, although
two ten year olds voiced their apprehensive about going to
secondary school. Older children and young people talked
about their individual aspirations, such as working with
horses, being an architect, playing football, joining a rugby
team and doing well in maths and science.
I’d like to
stop arguing
with my
friends.
I am not good
at talking. I
get
frustrated
and angry.
Teachers don’t
do anything –
they say ‘oh
dear’.
When asked what they would like for children like them in
the future, they commonly requested more teachers and
bigger schools.
Next Steps…
We have developed a questionnaire to explore children’s
and young people’s views on a larger scale. If you would
like your child to complete this questionnaire, contact
Helen@speech-therapy.org.uk
My Mum and Dad
helped me a lot and
then words came
into my head