Our past campaigns

Raising awareness, changing lives

As an organisation we’re proud of our record of driving change. Here’s some highlights from our history of campaigning for children who face challenges with talking and understanding words. These campaigns all took place before we became Speech and Language UK, so you may see our old I CAN logo on the linked webpages.

Our 2022 report revealed that 1.7 million children were struggling with talking and understanding words. We surveyed more than a 1,000 families and teachers across the UK to find out about the effects on children’s futures. We called for more programmes in schools, better training for teachers and more guidance on what works. The report attracted interest from a range of media outlets, including the BBC, Sky News, ITV and 5 News ultimately reaching 480 million people.

Our 2021 report revealed that 1.5 million children were behind in talking and understanding words after the Covid pandemic. We surveyed 1,000 teachers across the UK to find out about the effects on children’s skills in talking and understanding words. We called for more programmes in schools, better training for teachers and more guidance on what works. The report attracted interest from a range of media outlets, including the BBC, ultimately reaching just under 7 million people.

We worked with RCSLT once again, in 2017, to assess how our recommendations had been implemented in the 10 years since the original Bercow Report was published.

In 2008, we worked with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists to commission a review of services available for children who struggle with talking and understanding words. Sponsored by former MP and Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, the project resulted in a public awareness campaign, research and funding of The Communication Trust.

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