Suitability

A very wide range of early years practitioners, teachers, SENCOs and Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) across early years and primary settings. As it is a complete package of screening and support it can be used effectively by anyone without speech or language expertise, such as teaching assistants. Parents can use the activities with their children at home too. 

Any early years professional can use WellComm, including childminders, nursery workers, health visitors and teachers. The Toolkit can be used in any early years and/or primary setting. This includes pre-school playgroups, day nurseries, private nurseries, children’s centres, special schools and schools. 

WellComm covers the age range of 6 months to 11 years.

The WellComm Toolkit offers: 

• A means of tracking the progress of all children, regardless of ability. 

• The opportunity to identify areas of concern in language, communication and interaction development, in order to ensure targeted early intervention. 

• An array of resources enabling delivery of appropriate bespoke and focused activities to: 

  • Target those children who have some language difficulties 

  • Enhance the skills of those whose language skills are developing along normal lines 

  • Increase the number of children whose language, communication and interaction development is within the normal range. 

• A means of monitoring the success of strategies used to enhance communication skills. 

• An assessment that can be used at different stages of development and repeated to suit your needs (e.g. after three months or termly as a tracking tool). 

Currently there is no WellComm assessment designed for children above 11 years of age, however we do have schools who use WellComm Primary (6-11 years) with their secondary students. They can still identify the areas of language that pupils need to work on and use the Primary Big Book of Ideas to plan suitable language building activities. Traffic light outcomes still refer to the expected language ability of children of primary age and this should be taken into account when interpreting results. 

WellComm is universal in its application and has been designed to support all children in a cohort. A practitioner should use their professional judgement to ensure a given child is able to access the assessment appropriately. 

WellComm is universal in its application and has been designed to support all children in a cohort. However, we would advise practitioners to use their discretion to make a professional judgement as to the readiness of a learner to any screener assessment - ensuring the child is able to access the assessment appropriately.  

The WellComm assessment includes opportunities to observe children's behaviour and non-verbal communication skills which would make it appropriate to use with learners who are pre-verbal, however it is important to note that it is not a resource designed to specifically assess for characteristics of autism. WellComm is a speech, language and communication screener.