Skip navigation
What Your Donations Could Fund

Million Lost Voices - Early Years

Ellie

Through I CAN’s Early Years programme, children like Ellie will have their difficulties identified and supported much earlier, giving them the best chance to develop communication normally and thrive from day one at school.

Ellie's Story

By the time Ellie received the help she needed, she was over four and already struggling in school.

Born to young parents, Ellie was a sickly baby suffering from colds and ear infections. Shortly after taking her first steps, Ellie found that she could get things she wanted or point, rather than use words.

At 18 months, Ellie’s childminder mentioned Ellie’s communication – but both her parents and the health visitor thought that she would learn to speak in her own time.

Soon after starting nursery at two and a half, Ellie earned herself a reputation for biting other children and communicating through grunting and pointing.

Eventually, Ellie’s parents asked their GP for advice. On their initial visit the GP said not to worry. After a second visit 6 months later, Ellie was referred to a specialist.

When Ellie was nearly four, the speech and language therapist diagnosed her with severe difficulties in understanding language and talking.

The waiting list for ongoing treatment for these difficulties is 9 months.

A child who receives the right help early on has a better chance of overcoming their difficulties and developing normally

  • There is overwhelming evidence that children’s life chances are most heavily underpinned on their development in the first five years of life.
  • By the age of 4, a child in a typical professional family has experienced 45 million words whereas a child in a less advantaged family has only heard 13 million words (over 3 times fewer) putting them at a disadvantage in school from day one.
  • Awareness of the speech, language and communication milestones children should reach at different ages is low among the majority of families and people who work with children.
  • Many children whose language difficulties are resolved by 5½ years go on to develop good reading and spelling skills and pass as many exams as other children.*

*All statements are supported by published studies. Please contact I CAN for full details.

To help young children with communication difficulties, our MILLION LOST VOICES APPEAL aims to raise £600,000. Projects will include:


1. Training 600 parent volunteer ambassadors in 30 areas of social disadvantage.

6000 ‘at risk’, hard-to-reach families will receive vital information about the importance of early chatter and earlywarning signs of any difficulties.


2. Distributing useful resources and information to 11,000 GP surgeries and train 600 family practitioners who will have contact with ‘at risk’ families.

Hundreds of thousands of children will have their difficulties spotted and addressed much earlier, giving them the best possible chance of catching up before school.


3. Giving 30,000 families information to identify whether their child is meeting age-appropriate milestones and encourage them to seek advice if they are not.

15,000 children at risk of developing communication difficulties will have their communication supported from birth and any unpreventable difficulties addressed as early as possible.


4. Offer 450 children with delayed language skills intensive catch-up sessions in their first year of school.

This intensive catch-up programme will enable children to make significant progress, many catching up altogether with their peers, at this vital time in their development.