Who can take part in BEST sessions?

To be eligible for BEST children must: 

• Be aged 3-6
• Have typical hearing ability
• Have sufficient play and attention skills
• Have difficulties producing sentences containing multiple clause elements

Although you may have concerns about many children in your setting, it is important to understand that BEST will not necessarily be appropriate for some children with language needs. Children must have sufficient attention and play skills to benefit from this approach. For example, BEST is unlikely to be suitable for children with social communication difficulties associated with Autism. It is also important that children receive BEST intervention in their home language. Children with language and communication needs who are using languages other than English (LOTE) at home should always be supported to speak the language they share with their families. For more information on supporting children who speak LOTE please see the Bilingual BEST Page (LINK).

To support you to identify children in your setting who may benefit from BEST we have developed an Eligibility Assessment which should be administered by a trained Speech and Language Therapist before children begin BEST sessions. The assessment is designed to assess children's ability to:

• Demonstrate a range of play skills including spontaneous symbolic play (using toys to represent something, sometimes referred to as 'pretend play') and imitative play (mimic or copy an adult using toys symbolically)
• Demonstrate triadic attention (able to look at a toy then back to the adult to establish joint attention)
• Use language to describe a selection of pictures depicting people doing things (e.g. "a girl kicking a ball")