Communication Passports

A communication passport is a practical resource developed from a speech and language therapy perspective, designed to help the people supporting your child understand their communication and know how best to support them.

It is not an assessment. It does not involve carrying out a new speech and language assessment, diagnostic assessment, or a comprehensive assessment of your child's overall needs. Instead, it brings together information that is already available about your child's communication, including relevant professional reports and recommendations where available, together with information you share during the consultation and, where appropriate, your child's views.

The focus is to turn that existing information into clear, practical guidance about how your child communicates, how they understand information, what can make communication more difficult and what other people can do to support successful communication.

The most practical part is the one-page quick reference guide that can be shared with teachers, SNAs, coaches, childcare staff, activity leaders, and other people supporting your child.

If at any point it becomes clear that a further speech and language therapy assessment or assessment by another professional would be appropriate, that will be discussed separately

It includes clear, practical details about your child's communication. How they communicate day to day. How they understand information. What helps them communicate more easily and what can make communication more difficult. It also covers how others can support them, including preferred approaches in different setting.

1 Parent-carer questionnaire
Before the consultation, you'll complete a short questionnaire about your child's communication, strengths, what works well, and situations where communication can be more difficult. Where appropriate, your child or young person can also share their views.

2. Consultation

We'll have a 60-minute consultation to explore your child's individual communication profile and discuss what you'd like other people to understand about your child. 3. Review of existing information. Where available, we can consider relevant professional information, such as psychology or diagnostic reports, speech and language therapy reports, occupational therapy reports, educational reports, the aim is not to repeat those assessments, but to identify the information that's relevant and turn it into practical guidance.

4. Developing the communication passport.

Following the consultation, the child's personalised communication passport is developed, including the one-page quick reference guide and a more detailed communication profile where helpful.

5. Review and finalise.

You'll have an opportunity to review the completed passport and provide feedback. One round of amendments is included so we can make sure it works well for your child.

The one-page quick reference guide gives the people supporting your child the key information they need to communicate with them successfully.

It provides a quick, practical summary of things such as how your child communicates, how best to communicate with them, how much time they may need to process information, when visual information may be helpful, how you may know if communication is becoming difficult what helps when they're overwhelmed and things that can make communication harder.

It's designed to be easy to read and use.

It can be shared with teachers, SNAs, coaches, activity leaders, childcare staff, and other people supporting your child. You can keep it and reuse it whenever your child enters a new environment.

A Communication Passport developed by a speech and language therapist provides a personalised communication profile based on your child's individual needs and strengths.

The process includes a parent carer questionnaire, 60-minute parent or young person's consultation, review of relevant existing professional information where available, development of your child's personalised communication passport, one-page quick reference guide, practical communication recommendations, one round of amendments following your review, and a final electronic copy.

The cost of the complete Communication Passport service is €695.