Y WA partners with ECU to fast track access to vital early interventions 

Third year speech pathology students from Edith Cowan University (ECU) are ‘standing in the gap’ for families who are facing extensive waitlists for early intervention and support, working directly with children from the Y WA Baldivis Early Learning Centre to assist in identifying developmentally vulnerable children across the cohort.

With demand for speech therapy and other early interventions high across Western Australia some families are waiting over three years to secure much needed help, which, in the vital first five years of growth and development, can make a lifelong difference.

Responding to this urgent need, the Y WA approached ECU to discuss a partnership, inviting the School of Medical and Health Science students to work with and assist to identify developmentally vulnerable children across their ELC’s, starting with Baldivis.

The students will be supervised by a fully qualified clinical educator as they attend the centre once a week for a period of 12 weeks, commencing 27 February 2025, with the collaboration building on the current School ReadY program, which was developed by the Y WA in 2022 and has been operating across all 14 of the Y WA’s ELC’s since last year. 

School ReadY focuses on three developmental domains: Literacy and Language, Social and Emotional Wellbeing, and Numeracy, and is designed to support children between three and five years of age to develop oral language and early literacy skills to give them the best start to formal schooling. 

As part of the School ReadY Literacy and Language component, all children complete a language screen (Tier 1) which identifies students in need of extra help with literacy and language skills. 

For those children at the Y WA Baldivis ELC whose screen indicates they are having trouble and require a higher level of support, this includes working closely with a speech pathologist (Tier 2 intervention).

At the Y WA Baldivis ELC around 12 out of 45 children already tested have screened as requiring extra intervention. 

“When we identify the need for intervention, we have an established method in place, but having the extra support from speech pathology students at ECU is a win for our organisations, our families and our children,” Y WA Literacy Specialist Renee Chakaodza said.

“Early intervention is the key to making sure children do not start school behind and it is much harder to remediate a learning difficulty the longer it is left.”

Once a need for intervention is identified, Y WA has an established method in place, however having the extra support from the speech pathology students, she continued, is “a win for our organisations, our families and our children.” 

“Early intervention is the key to making sure children do not start school behind and it is much harder to remediate a learning difficulty the longer it is left,” Ms Chakaodza said.

In addition to assisting students at Baldivis, for other children across Y WA ELC’s the ECU students will assist to develop resources that can be shared and used by parents and educators across all centres. 

The speech pathology students will also focus on building the capacity of staff at Baldivis to provide additional support and intervention so they can continue assisting children who need it, once they have left.

“For children that do not do a language screen at this age, they risk their difficulties with language not being picked up, which could lead in the long term to difficulty reading, learning, and issues with all academic endeavours,” The Y WA CEO Dr Tim McDonald added. 

“Our School ReadY program aims to address these challenges head on and this partnership with ECU is bolstering what we are already successfully doing within the program.”

The Y WA is a community not-for-profit organisation and has been in WA for over 100 years. Learn more about its operations here. 

Image features: Isabella Legros (3 yrs) & Emma Barrington-Shaw (ECU third-year student), courtesy Tegan Taudigani