Areas of Need – strategies to support children
We have gathered together information and strategies to help you to support children with SEND in your setting. These have been organised below, within the four broad areas of need.
Language:
- Developing children's speech and language
- Pre-verbal activities
- Strategies to support children with language difficulties
- Top tips to support language development
- Gestalt-Language-Processing
- Activities to develop 2-word-level-understanding-with-nouns
- Oral-Exercises-to-support-speech-development
Communication:
- Makaton
- Makaton - Finger Spelling
- New Makaton List 1 2 x 3 Portrait - Flashcards PDF
- New Makaton List 2 2 x 3 Portrait - Flashcards PDF
- New Makaton List 3 2 x 3 Portrait - Flashcards PDF
- New Makaton List 4 2 x 3 Portrait - Flashcards PDF
- New Makaton List 5 2 x 3 Portrait - Flashcards PDF
- New Makaton List 6 2 x 3 Portrait - Flashcards PDF
- New Makaton List 7 2 x 3 Portrait - Flashcards PDF
- Makaton Charity Website - Sign of the week
- Choice Boards Solihull Early Years Team
- First_Then or Now & Next boards
- First Then_NowNext
- Friendly sabotage to encourage communication
- social-stories-in-early-years
Interaction:
Supporting the Cognition and Learning of children with SEND
Learning & Play:
- Ideas-to-improve-attention-and listening
- Play Partnering
- Promoting-children's-development
- Routines of play
- Indentiplay
Understanding & following routines:
Physical needs:
Gross & fine motor co-ordination:
Developing self help skills:
Sensory impairment:
- EY Top Tips Hearing Impairment
- Solihull's Early Years Sensory Processing Checklist - Electronic
- Supporting Children with Sensory Processing Differences in Early Years Settings - Electronic
- Early Years Sensory Diet Plan - Template
- Early Years Sensory Diet Plan - Example
- A-Guide-to-sensory-circuits
- Strategies for Children Who Mouth, Bite or Chew Non-Food Items
Difficulty managing emotions:
- Behaviour pack
- Children who refuse to do as you ask and avoid demands
- EYT Relationship-Based-Play-2024
- ACEs-handout
- ACEs-Trauma-and-ASD-Comparison
- Scripts to support positive behaviour
- Emotion-coaching-principles-and-four-steps
- Emotion-coaching
- ABC-Chart-with-guidance
- social-stories-in-early-years
- learning to problem solve
In addition, we have provided Information and strategies to help practitioners support children with specific SEND needs.
- Comparison between ASD and ACEs Trauma
- Autism in Solihull Information for nursery settings
- Solihull's Early Years Sensory Processing Checklist - ELECTRONIC
- Supporting Children with Sensory Processing Differences in Early Years Settings - ELECTRONIC
- Early Years Sensory Diet Plan - Template
- Early Years Sensory Diet Plan - Example
- Sensory Diet - ideas for activities 2025
- SASS-Strategies-for-supporting-children-on-the-Autism-Spectrum-in-the-Early-Years
- ASD Observation-Form Key areas of difference pre-diagnosis
- A Guide to sensory circuits
- Sensory issues and ASD (iceburg model)
- Supporting children with sensory needs early years
- Making_sense_of_sensory_behaviour