Promoting Speech Pathology to Achieve Exceeding Rating in Your Childcare Service

Perfect for National Speech Pathology week 24 – 30 August 2025

By BEST Childcare Consulting

To achieve an Exceeding Rating in your childcare service during Speech Pathology Week 2025 (24 – 30 August), the theme “Impact through Communication” offers a meaningful and strategic opportunity to showcase your service’s commitment to communication, inclusion, and partnerships. Here’s how to align this focus with the National Quality Standard (NQS).

Speech Pathology Week is an annual event that aims to raise awareness regarding the importance of speech pathology and dispel any prejudices surrounding it.

The theme for this year is all about the importance of speech pathologists and explores how they empower individuals, build confidence, and help people overcome communication barriers

Speech Pathology Week 2025 will emphasize the diverse ways individuals communicate and the crucial role speech pathologists play in supporting these diverse communication styles. 

Speech, language, and communication are foundational to every aspect of early childhood development. Celebrating Speech Pathology Week highlights how communication supports children’s sense of belonging, emotional regulation, inclusive participation, and meaningful family partnerships aligned with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF).

Quality Area 1 – Educational Program and Practice

Embedded Practice

Communication learning experiences are seamlessly woven into the curriculum, supporting holistic development. Activities such as “All About Me Books”“Let’s Be Experts”, and “I Can Tell My Story Journals” provide daily opportunities for children to explore identity, build vocabulary, and express ideas. Language-rich provocations, visual supports, and flexible tools like microphone moments and storytelling stations are consistently available.

Critical Reflection

Educators critically analyse how each communication experience meets diverse developmental needs, literacy styles, and learning outcomes from the EYLF. Observations from activities like Talk and Explore Stations and Feelings Check-Ins inform planning and documentation, ensuring the intentional teaching cycle is responsive and child-centred. Reflective practice supports differentiation, inclusion, and continuous improvement.

Meaningful Engagement

Children’s communication styles and interests are central to program planning. Educators follow children’s cues—extending conversations sparked by play or books into deeper inquiry. Experiences such as “Me and My Friends” Quilt empower children to express themselves in multimodal ways, while promoting peer-to-peer learning and shared problem-solving.

Quality Area 5 – Relationships with Children

Embedded Practice

Language and communication are integral to nurturing respectful, trusting relationships. Strategies like Conversation Circles and daily use of visual cues or emotion charts foster predictability and emotional security. Communication scaffolds are naturally embedded into interactions, encouraging children to share, listen, and respond kindly.

Critical Reflection

Educators consider how communication strategies support social connection, agency, and self-expression. Through observations and team discussions, they evaluate which strategies empower each child and adjust approaches for neurodivergent learners or those from diverse language backgrounds.

Meaningful Engagement

Children co-construct knowledge through story-sharing, role-play, and expression of their thoughts and feelings. Activities such as “Microphone Moments” and charades-style games nurture confidence, agency, and authentic connection. Interactions are respectful, emotionally attuned, and intentionally scaffolded.

Quality Area 6 – Collaborative Partnerships with Families and Communities

Embedded Practice

The service routinely integrates communication strategies that reflect and respect family input and community languages. Tools like AUSLAN signschoice boards, and safe word posters are visible and accessible in all learning environments. Families are invited to contribute stories, songs, and communication practices from home cultures.

Critical Reflection

Educators reflect on whose voices are represented in communication tools and storytelling practices. Books and visuals are reviewed to ensure they are culturally relevant, linguistically diverse, and accessible to all families. Reflections include insights from community speech pathologists or inclusion support professionals when available.

Meaningful Engagement

Family engagement extends beyond consultation to co-creation. Families participate in storytime in every voice, are encouraged to share communication tips from home, and contribute to communication boards or quilt displays. Children learn that communication is valued in many forms, languages, and settings, strengthening their cultural competence and sense of belonging.

Helpful Resources and links

Ideas for your speech based early childhood educational program

Here is a list of purposeful, engaging activities for early childhood education services to implement during Speech Pathology Week 2025 using the theme “Impact Through Communication”, with each activity aligning to one of the 7 subthemes:

1. Connection through Communication

Activity: “Me and My Friends” Communication Quilt
Children create individual squares showing how they say hello, ask a friend to play, or express a feeling. These are combined into a class quilt to represent how communication builds a community.

Activity: “Conversation Circle”
Use visual prompts or talking sticks during group time to encourage children to take turns, listen actively, and respond kindly to each other.

2. Confidence through Communication

Activity: “My Microphone Moment”
Children use a toy microphone or talking stick to share a story, idea, or feeling in front of their peers. Educators model and scaffold sentence starters and confident body language.

Activity: “All About Me Books”
Children create personal mini-books that describe themselves, their families, and their likes/dislikes using drawings, photos, and dictated text. likes/dislikes using drawings, photos, and dictated text.

https://fun-a-day.com/all-about-me-printable-book

 3. Inclusion through Communication

Activity: “Signs and Symbols Everywhere”
Introduce key word signing (e.g., AUSLAN) for greetings, emotions, or routines. Display communication boards around the classroom and encourage all children to use them.

Activity: “Storytime in Every Voice”
Read a story with both spoken words and AUSLAN/sign language, using visuals, gestures, and props to make the story accessible to all learners.

https://www.education.sa.gov.au/our-learning-sa/learning-home-activities/languages/auslan-stories-children

Activity: “Guess the Body Language Game”
Play a silent charades-style game where children act out actions (e.g., “dig a hole” or “use an umbrella”) without speaking. Others guess the action, promoting awareness of non-verbal cues and how body language supports inclusive communication.

https://venturelab.org/printable-body-language-game-cards/

4. Empowerment through Communication

Activity: “I Can Say What I Need” Posters
Children help create posters using pictures of how they ask for help, food, space, or comfort. These empower children to express their needs confidently.

https://www.fluentaac.com/communication-boards

Activity: “Feelings Check-In”
Set up a daily emotional regulation chart where children use pictures, colours, or tokens to show how they feel—and practice asking for help when needed.

https://learningforapurpose.com/free-printable-feelings-chart-to-help-preschoolers-identify-and-learn-about-emotions/?utm_source=chatgpt.com#free-printable-feelings-chart

5. Opportunity through Communication

Activity: “Let’s Be Experts”
Each child chooses something they know a lot about (e.g., dinosaurs, dolls, trucks) and shares it during group time. Educators help extend vocabulary and scaffold clear explanations.

https://aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au/articles/childcare-articles/show-and-tell-for-preschoolers

Activity: “Talk and Explore Stations”
Set up small world play, sensory bins, or puppet theatres designed to spark storytelling, problem-solving, and turn-taking conversations.

6. Wellbeing through Communication

Activity: “Mindful Moments with Words”
Use calming activities like breathing songs, yoga with verbal prompts, or storytelling that supports emotional vocabulary and self-awareness.

https://www.earlylearninghq.org.uk/class-management/psed/breathing-techniques-for-children-free-printable-cards

Activity: “My Safe Words”
Teach children specific words and gestures they can use when feeling unsafe, overwhelmed, or upset—reinforcing language as a tool for emotional wellbeing.

7. Independence through Communication

Activity: “Visual Routines and Choice Boards”
Support independence by using picture schedules for daily tasks and visual choice boards at snack time, play, and transitions.

Activity: “I Can Tell My Story” Journals
Invite children to draw or dictate their daily experiences into a journal. Use these for 1:1 conversations or group sharing, supporting independent narrative skills.

Let BEST Childcare Consulting Help You Shine

At BEST Childcare Consulting, we empower early learning services to turn curiosity into evidence of exceeding practice. Speech Pathology Week is a perfect time to highlight how your service supports confident, involved learners while engaging families and communities.

Ask us how today. 

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