A SPECIAL word was attached to each of these balloons as they were released at Birchwood Children’s Centre, Hatfield, marking the nursery’s celebrations of Early Talk Awareness Week.

Each child chose a word to mark ‘Take Words Further’ – an initiative of the Hello campaign’s Year of Communication.

Sophie Pullinger, speech and language therapist at the Crawford Road-based centre, said: “The week helped raise awareness of the speech, language and communication needs of young children and the importance of building foundations for early communicative skills.”

Acting headteacher, Kathryn Evans, said the week had been a great success with parents joining children for a story session and nursery classes having CBeebies’ Raa Raa the Noisy Lion to lead a week of activities.

For more information and for support for children with speech, language and communication needs click on the link (top right).