Newcastle University publish the complete BEST package. The toolkit includes a comprehensive manual and all the documentation.

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Building Early Sentence Therapy

The BEST approach utilises toys, so you will need to put together a BEST toy box in order to deliver the therapy. This is a set of easy to obtain children's toys and everyday objects.

There are pre-prepared therapy aims for you to select and enter into the care plan template (opens as a pdf). This can then be shared with parents and carers, as well as nursery and school staff.

All of the documentation and equipment has been developed in a real children's speech and language therapy service, with feedback from parents, speech and language therapists and speech and language therapy assistants.

We think that you will find the BEST package is a complete solution.

BEST IN FIVE EASY STEPS

1. Create a BEST toolkit.
It contains all you need to understand the BEST programme, plan and run BEST groups. 
Just add a toy box and download our other FREE! resources.

2. Put together a toy box
Joint attention between the adult leading the group and the children attending is key to the programme's success. Using dolls, toys and objects is a natural way to facilitate language.

BEST cannot be carried out using pictures alone. 

3. Complete a BEST Eligibility Assessment for each child

Refer children who are not suitable for the BEST programme to other approaches which meet their needs.

The eligibility assessment is part of the BEST toolkit.

4. Complete a baseline assessment with each eligible child, including:
a) A comprehension assessment such as the New Reynell Developmental Language Scales*
*N.B. Not part of the BEST toolkit or BEST programme. Other language assessments are available.
b) A BEST baseline/pre-treatment assessment, part of the BEST toolkit.

5. Write a care plan (opens as a pdf) for each suitable child and share this with parent(s)/carer(s), and any professionals working with the child such as a nursery teacher, children's centre staff member or special educational needs coordinator.‌

All resouces are published under a Creative Commons Licence: BY-NC-ND.

You can use and share the materials as long as you give credit to the LIVELY team at Newcastle University. You may not use the materials for commercial purposes. If you make changes to the materials you may not share these.