Children’s language needs in Cambridgeshire rise post-lockdown, figures show

The number of children in Cambridgeshire needing support for speech, language and communication in the first year of school has risen by 76 per cent, new analysis shows.

The increase is partly down to the effect of lockdown restrictions according to experts.

The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists said the profession was struggling to cope with the demand. Meanwhile, the government said it was putting £180m into early years development.

Kamini Gadhok, chief executive of the Royal College of Speech, Language, Therapists, said: “I think communication is the bedrock of all our learning, both social and emotional, as well as educational learning.

“Our interaction with our families and communities, and most importantly, for young children as well, making friends. And if we don’t support children who have needs early on, we do know that they go on to have, or can go on to have significant needs as they get older.”

The number of Cambridgeshire children needing support for speech, language and communication in Year 1 rose from 258 in 2015/16 to 418 in 2021/2, which had risen by 31.45 per cent compared to the previous academic year. This is higher than the national rise of 9.81 per cent, analysis by the BBC’s Shared Data Unit found.

The increase places education authority Cambridgeshire County Council third in the region out of 11 authorities. Despite this, Cambridgeshire remains one of lowest for school funding in the UK, ranking 137th from 149 local authorities.

Ms Gadhok said: “It is a real worry. Our members have been telling us anecdotally that they’ve been seeing a huge increase in the number of children referred to them. We’ve been very aware, from the surveys we’ve done, that the pandemic has had an impact, not just because of services being closed or schools not being open, but also because children were not able to interact in a way that they used to.”

Is there a solution? Ms Gadhok said: “We’ve been raising concerns even pre-pandemic, because there was a situation within the profession, and for services that were already very, very stretched. We have seen a cut in funding to speech and language services over the years. Children’s communication needs have not been prioritised within the government, and we were very concerned about this.”

The charity Speech and Language UK said this could have been down to the lack of stimulus available to young children during the pandemic.

Jane Harris, chief executive of the charity, said: “We know that during Covid children did not have the opportunities to talk to other children. And they learn a lot from learning from talking to other children. They also didn’t have the opportunities for new experiences. If you think about how children learn to speak and learn words, they learn by doing new things, they learn from going to a farm and seeing a cow and then they know the word cow.

“If children do not have those new experiences – which they didn’t during the pandemic – they do not have the opportunity and the reason to learn those new words and learn to talk.”

The Department for Education says up to £180m of government funding over the next three years will support the sector to focus on children’s development in their earliest years and help to address existing recruitment and retention challenges.

Minister for schools and childhood, Kelly Tolhurst, explained: “The early years of a child’s life are vital, not only in establishing important developmental skills, but also in building a lifelong love of learning that will help them succeed in adult life.

“I’m really proud of the quality and dedication of our early years workforce. This package of support is a huge investment in their skills and professional development, because raising the status of this important sector is key to its growth.”