Attention is the skill of concentrating on a specific activity, event or stimuli, and avoiding focusing on other competing stimuli. Over time, children develop and extend their attention, to share attention with others on a shared item as part of developing their communication and interaction skills.
Listening is the skill of actively focusing on and processing auditory information, such as spoken language or noises in the environment.
Children who need support with their listening and attention skills may require information to be presented in small manageable ‘chunks’ and rely on visual cues to aid focus and understanding. These resources, activities and strategies support children’s developing listening and attention skills.
Websites
- WellComm - GL Assessment
- Speech and Language UK advice and guidance to families and education settings to identify and support children with speech and language differences.
- Makaton a method of communication which involves using symbols (pictures), signs (gestures) and speech to enable people to communicate.
- Singing Hands a Makaton resource page and offers signing sessions, resources and information to families and practitioners.
Self-help resources
The SENDCO Helpdesk is a free early advice service that can discuss concerns at an individual or whole school/setting level. It is aimed to help support SENDCOs (or practitioners supporting SEND in early years) to consider the next steps when implementing the Graduated Response so that the needs of children with SEND are met as early as possible.
Oxfordshire Speech and Language Therapy advice
- Attention & listening
- Attention and listening by developmental age
- Attention and concentration
- Attention and organisational skills
- Play, conversation and interaction
Oxfordshire Occupational Therapy advice
Further resources
- May I Join You? is an approach for supporting children with social communication differences, who are at a very early stage of development. This video clip explains how adults can adapt their practice to join a child’s play
- Tips to help your child focus - BBC Tiny Happy People
- Visual Timetable
- Descriptive Commentary
- Taking Turns
- Signing to Support Children’s Language Development- 100 Oxfordshire signs and alphabet
- Auditory strategies
- Attention Autism a program focusing on attention, engagement and communication with autistic children and young people.
Training
Improving early identification in Oxfordshire: an introduction to WellComm
This introductory training will help you to increase your confidence to access and navigate the WellComm tool kit. WellComm is a complete speech and language toolkit, including identification and intervention support. This course is available online and can be bought in-house for the whole staff as a traded package.
The aim of a ‘Language Lead’ approach is to improve universal early language provision within every early years setting in Oxfordshire by establishing a named practitioner with a responsibility for communication and language. Language Leads will be provided with research-based tools and new resources to help them support colleagues. They will be encouraged to recognise changes that will benefit the whole setting. Please register your language lead by emailing early.years@oxfordshire.gov.uk
Developing Children’s Phonological Awareness
This course aims to increase your knowledge about how to develop children’s phonological awareness. It focuses on the many aspects of early year’s provision that support children’s early language and how these provide the necessary foundations for early reading and writing. The course outlines key areas to focus on in your practice and you will be introduced to a range of interactive games and activities to develop children’s skills. This course is available online and can be bought in-house for the whole staff as a traded package.
Quality interactions in the Early Years
This course explores the importance of quality interactions on children’s learning and development and provides strategies for effective interactions. This course is available online and can be bought in-house for the whole staff as a traded package.
What to Expect When: Advice and Support from a Speech and Language Therapist
This course will be available as a recording for staff to watch from October 2025.
Identifying and supporting young children with speech language and communication needs This course looks at the tools we would like practitioners to use to support their identification of children with speech, language and communication needs in Oxfordshire. It supports practitioners to develop their universal provision for all children but also unpicks how to develop a response for children who need targeted support, or who may need a referral for specialist support.
Autism Education Trust Making Sense of Autism in the Early Years This whole setting face to face training aims to: enhance understanding and awareness of Autism and how Autism can affect children in the Early Years; highlight the importance of understanding the individual child and their profile of strengths and needs; highlight potential barriers to learning for Autistic children and equip staff with the knowledge they need to begin to make reasonable adjustments when supporting Autistic children. If you would like to request this training for your setting, please contact the SENDCO helpdesk
Autism Education Trust Good Autism Practice in the Early Years This training has been created to help practitioners understand the distinctive strengths and learning needs of Autistic children as well as advice on teaching approaches, methods and resources to use in educational practice for this group of learners.
Supporting Early Years children with Cognition and Learning needs This Training/information session aims to support Early Years educators to understand more about how Cognition and Learning difficulties can be identified and supported in the Early Years as part of the Graduated Response. This session has been developed in partnership with the Educational Psychology Service.
The Oxfordshire Speech and Language Therapy Service has developed two instructional signing videos designed to assist parents, carers, and professionals with introducing and using signing to support communication in the Early Years:
Specialist support in setting
The Early Years SEND Advisory team work with individual children under 5 years of age who have complex learning, communication and/or social interaction differences. Individual children can be referred using an Early Support SPORFI form (docx format, 585Kb). Support is given to the family and/or the child’s early years setting or nursery class in collaboration with other agencies from education, health and social care.
The Early Years SEND Advisory team also provide universal and targeted support to Oxfordshire early years settings and schools in order to promote effective inclusion of children with SEND. Settings and schools can use the SENDCO Helpdesk to ask for ‘no names’ advice and targeted setting support.
A Single Point of Request for Involvement (SPORFI) (docx format, 200KB) is a multiagency form used to request support from various educational and health teams for children under 5 with special educational needs and/or disabilities. For further information see the Single Point of Request for Involvement (SPORFI) Flowchart (pdf format, 200KB).
Complete the SPORFI form (docx format, 500KB) to make a request. Services that can be requested include:
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Speech and Language Therapy (feeding)
- Physiotherapy
- Occupational Therapy
- Early Years SEND team
- SENSS – Physical Disability
The Speech and Language Therapy service support children and young people who have speech, language and communication difficulties to develop the best possible communication skills that they can. For some, this might be spoken communication, and for others it might be learning to use a communication aid, or an approach based on signs, symbols or gestures. Speech and Language Therapists also assess, treat and advise on eating, drinking and swallowing problems.
Health Visiting Services offer support to families at home and in the community from pre-birth until the child turns 8 years old. See information on how Health Visiting and early years settings working together.
Early Help Children’s Services Early help refers to the collaborative approach taken by all services working with children and families to provide support for a family before problems escalate. Accessing early help can address potential issues and improve outcomes for children, young people, and families. More information can be found at Early Help and the Locality Community Support Service (LCSS).
The Communication and Interaction team is a countywide Special Educational Needs (SEN) teaching and advisory support service for schools supporting children from reception age onwards.