ABSTRACT
As communication is the foundation of interaction between people, a breakdown in communication will have a profound emotional impact on a child. This chapter offers strategies that teachers and teaching assistants can use to develop communication with and between pupils. Teachers and other adults in school are anxious about how to communicate with children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The children might not yet have acquired the full range of communication strategies, so adults will have to try a little harder both to understand what the child has to say and to make themselves understood. Pupils with autistic spectrum disorder will have difficulties both in understanding facial expression and in using it effectively as part of communication. Some pupils with complex communication difficulties use portable electronic communication devices. Children with SEND have a lot to say, people just have to learn how to listen and hear what they say.
