Abstract

Children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) are far more likely to have communication problems than their peers. Exploring the ways in which children's language and emotional development are linked, Melanie Cross considers the reasons why behavioural and communication difficulties often occur together.

Identifying the common causes of these problems and the reasons why they often go undetected, she provides practical guidelines for assessing communication skills and the complexities of identifying communication problems in children, including children in public care. She shows how improving children's communication can also improve their behaviour and that speech and language therapy is an important, although often absent, service for children with EBD.

With a range of strategies to help children and young people to develop their emotional and communicative skills, this accessible guide is an invaluable resource for speech and language therapists, social workers, teachers and other health professionals working with young people with emotional, behavioural and communication problems.

Melanie Cross describes the book herself as the one "I needed when I began to work with children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties" (9). I would not disagree with this statement and would go further to say it should become a core text for staff training in the caring professions.
Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Journal
This book is just what I've been looking for, mainly because it draws together all the recent literature and research around children's social and emotional difficulties, and their link to communication difficulties. More than that, though, it encourages the reader to think about the depth of children's development, and investigate further. I found it quite inspiring.
SureStart

This book is to be welcomed because it attempts to integrate knowledge from different disciplines to present a broadly based account of this important subject. Its central thesis is that many communication problems remain undetected, and that their impact upon children's cognition, emotions, behaviour, performance and social relationships is therefore, unrecognized.

This book is a useful starting point for anyone working with children and who seeks to understand the complex linkages and relationships between children's communication difficulties and their emotional problems.

European Journal of Social Work
Social workers, mental health professionals and other practitioners working with children should find this reader of use. She presents practical guidelines for assessing communication skills and problems, and shows how improving children's communication can improve their behaviour.
Care and Health Magazine
Suitable as an introductory text for a range of practitioners working with children with EBD who want to gain some theoretical and practical knowledge of the field
Child Language Teaching and Therapy
Melanie Cross is a speech and language therapist with many years experience of working with children and young people with communication problems. For the past fifteen years she has worked with young people in public care at The Integrated Services Programme (ISP), an innovative independent child care agency based in England. Melanie has also worked for the children's communication charity I CAN as a professional advisor, and is currently a clinical tutor on the speech and language therapy course at City University, London.