Remember to keep a file with all the details of your child's medical history, education reports and other important documents. You may need this information at some time and it should be kept in a safe place.

Assessment and statementing

The pre-school can arrange additional support for your child through 'Early Years Action' or 'Early Years Action Plus'. Children who stammer are only likely to need further support than this if there is another more complex need present for which statutory assessment and specialist support is required. For example, a third of children with Down's syndrome are likely to stammer.

The majority of children who stammer are unlikely to go on to be statutorily assessed

If your child who stammers was not making progress under the 'Early Years Action' or 'Early Years Action Plus' schemes and has other complex needs that require a lot of special extra help, your local authority can carry out a more detailed assessment of your child's needs, based on professional advice. This assessment may conclude that your child needs the extra support that a statement of special educational needs should give.

The assessment finds out exactly what your child's needs are, and what special help they need. It is only necessary if your child's pre-school or educational setting cannot provide all the help they need. If your child is under two years of age it is unlikely that statementing would be considered unless he has the most severe learning difficulties.

Click on the following links to open a PDF, use the back button on your browser to return to this resource. To save the handout to your computer, right click and choose 'Save as'.

Text for this page: Summary
Text for this whole section: When your child has complex needs