Annabelle’s Speech by Kristine Allen

Annabelle is a happy and friendly 14 year old girl. She started secondary specialist school in September 2018 and settled in well. A few tears on her first day of school, but other than that she is having a fun time learning life skills and building on her strength.

Annabelle was able to tell me that she was scared, she uses words and if she doesn’t know how to describe her feeling she would try and use gestures.  Annabelle has problems with certain letters and pronunciations, but it doesn’t stop her from being very talkative. She went to a mainstream primary school that benefited her social skills and I believe challenged her to improve her communication.

Now her school is encouraging all its pupils to learn Makaton. Annabelle embraced the idea and even makes up her own Makaton signs.  Even though Annabelle does not need Makaton, it empowers her to communicate with the other children in her school with less communication skills than her.

Annabelle has started using a more advance words but can still be left frustrated in trying to describe something, unfortunately there would be time that she will just give up and change the subject. Other times she would persist and use gestures, or her youngest sibling comes to the rescue. There are setbacks but we will keep on going, she can be very tenacious and head strong so we are positive that her communication will continue to improve