The Catholic Education Ballarat (CEB) Speech Pathology team is trialling a different approach to support students’ communication skills through the AllReady Project.

The project focuses on speech pathologists and classroom teachers working together collaboratively to respond to whole-cohort speech and language screening data. This project, lead by Miranda Pearse and Rebecca Free, will continue throughout 2025.

This year, St Augustine’s, Creswick and Our Lady Help of Christians, Warrnambool are the schools participating in the AllReady Project.

Initial screening of 81 Foundation students has been completed, with results aligning with national and international trends of increased communication difficulties in cohorts significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic (Zuniga Montanez et al., 2025).

Research shows that 7.5% of children have Developmental Language Disorder (Norbury et al., 2016), yet fewer than a third are identified before experiencing reading difficulties (Adlof et al, 2017, Nation et al., 2004, Tomblin et al., 1997, as cited by Adlof & Hogan, 2019).

Given this research the CEB Speech Pathology team is committed to working with diocesan schools to build teacher knowledge and confidence in identifying students with communication difficulties early and to ensure their full inclusion in the classroom.

Enhancing students’ communication skills is vital, as language difficulties can affect learning, relationships, mental health, and future career prospects.