St Catherine’s works with young people to provide them with the tools and strategies to live as full and independent lives as possible, counteracting the many social difficulties that young people and adults with speech, language and communication needs experience.

The term ‘speech, language and communication needs’ (SLCN) is an umbrella term describing difficulties with one or many aspects of communication including:

• Problems with producing speech sounds accurately
• Stammering 
• Voice problems, such as hoarseness and loss of voice
• Difficulties in making sense of what people say
• Difficulties using language (words and sentences)
• Difficulties in interacting with others.  For example, difficulties understanding non-verbal signals, or using language in different ways to question, clarify or describe things

Some of these SLCN challenges will be permanent and will remain with a person throughout their childhood and adult life. Others are short term and can be addressed through effective early intervention. At St Catherine’s, we support students who have lifelong SLCN.

Around 1.4 million (10%) children in the UK have a long-term SLCN; that is around two to three children in every class. The needs of these children can be divided into three groups:

• Complex language disorder
• Language disorder associated with another condition e.g. autism spectrum condition
• Developmental language disorder

St Catherine’s supports students from all three of the groups above, with the young person’s language disorder being their primary need. Due to their SLCN, many young people with these conditions face disadvantages:

• At the age of 19, young people with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are twice as likely as their peers to be Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) 
• Young people with DLD as a group have lower levels of academic attainment, fewer qualifications and examinations and are more likely to leave formal education early 
• In 2019-2020, 71% of young people sentenced in youth courts had language disorders