Trouble Talking
by James Law and Jane Elias

Overall, this is an extremely useful book for parents of children with speech and language difficulties. The authors pull everything together, explaining clearly how speech develops normally, how genetic, medical and social factors may impede the child's progress, and how parents and health workers can monitor and react to area of concern in the way the child communicates.

In Chapter 4 there are contributions from four professionals (a paediatrician, a psychologist, a psychotherapist and an occupational therapist), who describe their particular ways of working with speech and language impaired children. Chapter 9 contains contributions by representatives of two independent organisations, ICAN (Invalid Children's Aid Nationwide), describing how their special boarding schools can help in this field, and AFASIC (Association for All Speech-Impaired Children), explaining how their local groups fundraise, organise confidence-building events and lobby local and national government to raise awareness of the needs of the speech-impaired.

Chapter 5 deals with "Labels and Diagnosis", explaining the uses and pitfalls in the use of these. Eventually came a page on "dysfluency", which was described succinctly, together with "secondary behaviour" such as tension in the body, tics or "starters" to overcome blocking. Chapter 7 is concerned with educational provision, which varies from area to area (e.g. special units or support integrated into mainstream education). Chapter 8 investigates the various therapeutic approaches, discussing seven named schemes, which may be employed as part of the child's education. Chapter 10 sets out the legal framework laid down by the 1993 Education Act which guides LEAs, schools and teachers in their assessment and statementing of pupils. The stages of assessment described here are set out in a schematic form in Appendix 1, while Appendix 2 show a Statement of Special Educational Needs.

The book is very easy to read, even for those with little or no knowledge of the subject, because everything is clearly presented and specific term are explained in the glossary. Lists of useful books and addresses provide further help. As most readers are likely to start off by dipping into this book to see if it discusses their particular area of interest, they will probably turn to the index - and here I encountered the only, admittedly minor , fault in the book. As I am interested in "stammering", I looked this up and was re-directed to "fluency" (likewise for "stuttering"), but could not find this word listed. I did ,however, find "dysfluency", which finally directed me to the correct pages - a very small flaw in a very informative and reassuring book.

Reviewed by Vic Bowden in the Autumn 1998 issue of Speaking Out

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