Structured approach to communication helps promote an inclusive learning environment

Information

Coleg Elidyr is a residential independent specialist college for young people aged 18 to 30 years with autism, learning difficulties and disabilities. All learners reside in one of the college’s six residential houses set in a 180 acres in rural Carmarthenshire.

The site includes its own groceries shop, a small-holding and kitchen garden, a bed and breakfast facility, and a soap and bathbomb making enterprise. It is also home to a further 27 young people with learning difficulties and disabilities.

The college’s mission is to enable people with learning difficulties and disabilities to develop their knowledge and skills and reach their full potential, while living and working in a community.

Context and background to the practice

All learners at Coleg Elidyr have complex needs and many are non-verbal or use minimal words. Typically over half of the learners at Coleg Elidyr have autism and a further fifth present with autistic traits. All have communication difficulties, both in terms of being understood by others and in understanding what is communicated to them.

Many learners experience sensory processing difficulties and challenges in dealing with both planned and unanticipated changes and at times of transitions, for example when leaving and returning to the college, moving between residential and education environments or between sessions on their daily timetable.

Description of the nature of strategy or activity idientified as effective or innovative practice

Total communication is an approach used to support the communication of basic wants and needs and to enable individuals to become less dependent on others. It facilitates inclusion by providing structure and routine to avoid frustration and anxiety. It also provides opportunities for social interactions and supports individuals in managing transitions. It places emphasis on supporting an individual’s need for adequate processing time and how that can vary across time and situations. Effective total communication also requires a high level of effective communication between staff.

Total communication combines speaking, signing and physical resources together. Signs are always used to support verbal communication and a breadth of other tools are used depending on learner need. Across the college site, total communication resources support learner understanding, for example through communication boards in residential houses and across the college workshop and curriculum areas.

Physical resources include ‘now and next’ boards and task lists that use visual symbols and text to support understanding. Other resources such as ‘talking mats’ may be used at the end of a teaching session to support non-verbal learners in reflecting on the session and the progress they are making against their learning goals. The use of ‘sequence sliders’ that explain the steps required to complete specific tasks can make a significant impact on supporting learner independence. For example, they can be used by a learner to move around the college site un-escorted. For many young people, this will be their first experience of such independence. ‘Social stories’ are used to explain situations, events or activities and ‘objects of reference’ used alongside signing and speech to support learner understanding.

The college’s total communication approach means that no learner is excluded from daily formal and informal interactions across the college. To support the maintenance of this approach all staff complete an externally validated signing course for people with learning difficulties and disabilities. The college also has a dedicated total communication co-ordinator who works across care and education environments to ensure consistency of approaches. Additionally, all students and staff engage in dedicated weekly 90-minute total communication sessions together, where skills are built and consolidated.

Impact on provision and learners’ standards

The total communication infrastructure builds learner confidence in their environment and themselves. It supports learners to communicate in ways they may previously have been unable to do, promoting increased interactions, self-advocacy, wellbeing, self-reliance and resilience. Utilising relevant total communication resources, learners can readily access their targets and monitor their own progress.

As a result of the college’s well-co-ordinated approach to total communication, young people, who in the past may have been excluded from the vast majority of interactions around them, can live in a wholly inclusive environment where they can both understand and be understood.

At its recent inspection of the college in October 2019, Estyn inspectors noted:

“The behaviour of learners around the college is excellent. This is because, as they develop the skills to communicate more effectively, they learn to express their emotions and regulate their behaviours.”

“The college provides learners with exceptionally high levels of care, support and guidance. In particular, the very effective whole-college total communication strategy enables learners to develop their learning and social skills and prepares them extremely well for adult life.”