Service Spotlight: South Ayrshire Communication Friendly Environments 🔦
- Celine Dyer
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Making communication easier for everyone in our community
Today we’re shining a light on the incredible Communication Friendly Environments Project in South Ayrshire - led by Claire, Speech & Language Therapy Lead.
This project helps community spaces become more accessible, welcoming and communication‑inclusive for people of all ages.
What the project does 👋
The team supports any community setting in South Ayrshire - from cafés and charities to airports, GP surgeries and activity groups. Their aim is simple: remove barriers, celebrate communication in all its forms, and make every space easier to navigate.
How they do it 🤔
The project focuses on three main areas:
1. Visual Supports in Community Spaces
The team visits each setting and provides clear, accessible visuals such as:
door labels
directional arrows
no‑entry signs
toilet signs
photo supports
They use Boardmaker symbols, which many people will recognise from schools and early years settings. These visuals help everyone - including autistic people, people with learning disabilities, and those who simply prefer visual information - to move around confidently.
2. Total Communication Training
Staff receive a friendly, practical 2‑hour session that covers:
understanding speech, language and communication needs
everyday strategies that make interactions easier
the importance of slowing down and giving processing time
being face‑to‑face and at someone’s level to support connection
a Makaton taster session to build confidence with simple signs
This training helps staff feel more confident and reduces barriers for anyone who might find communication tricky.
3. Bespoke Communication Resources
Each setting receives resources tailored to who they support.
This can include:
lanyard symbols
communication boards
social stories
visual guides that explain what will happen in a service or activity
These supports are practical, easy to use, and designed to empower the whole community.
Where can you find communication friendly spaces? 📍
So many places are already accredited - and proudly display their plaque. A few examples include:
Ayr A&E (with communication boards, social stories and a photo book at reception)
Ayr Farm Park
Prestwick Airport
Jiggy Wrigglers
Ayr United’s Dementia Friendly Walking Football
Tempura & Spudbuds
More places are on the way too, including Dundonald Castle and Ayrshire Hospice.
You can explore accredited settings, videos and “Mappy Monday” updates on:
🔵 Facebook: South Ayrshire Communication Friendly Environments
🟣 Instagram: @SACommunicationFriendly
Why communication friendly practice matters 💙
Making small changes helps everyone feel welcome - especially autistic people, people with ADHD, learning differences, communication differences and people who simply benefit from more processing time.
As Claire explains, it’s not about big changes.
It’s about small tweaks that create big impact, like:
talking a little slower
giving up to 10 seconds for someone to respond
using natural gesture or Makaton signs
using clear, consistent visuals
labelling doors and spaces so people always know what’s behind them
These little adaptations help make our communities inclusive, calm and supportive - and they celebrate the strengths neurodivergent people bring to our communities. 💙
Watch the Video 🎥
Hear directly from Claire about South Ayrshire Communication Friendly Environments
📄 Read the Full Transcript
The full transcript of Patsy’s video is available below for accessibility and ease of use.
📝 Full Video Transcript
South Ayrshire Communication Friendly Environments Service Spotlight – Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2026 – Full Video Transcript
I’m Claire, so I'm the Speech and Language Therapy Lead for the Communication Friendly Project in the community.
So that involves any community setting in South Ayrshire, it could be a business, it could be a charity, it could be a group who wants to come on a communication friendly journey.
So I'm involved with leading the project, reporting on it, success of it, delivering training, providing visuals, and really just kind of overseeing the project as a whole. So it could be anyone at all that's involved in a community setting in South Ayrshire, up two years ago now, like August 2024.
So it kind of evolved through it starting in East Ayrshire in the schools and the nurseries and then it transferred to South Ayrshire Education. And we kind of thought like why is it just in education? Why is it not wider in the community for young children all the way up to the elderly population as well and anyone that does have a language or communication you need. So it can be anyone at all in a community setting in South Ayrshire. really upskilling community staff members to support the speech language communication skills of everyone in South Ayrshire. So breaking down those barriers and making sure that services are accessible for everyone.
Its varied, communication friendly will look really different for every setting.
So it'll look really different from a restaurant to a charity to a playgroup for instance, to a GP surgery, it'll look different everywhere you go.
So the three main elements of our role involve providing visuals for the actual building that a setting uses.
So signage, so we use board maker symbols which are really, really clear.
They're also used in education, so you'll have the symbol and then the word. So things like no entry signs, toilet doors, arrows, so people know where they're going, just members of the public. So we'll go out and do a walk around of a setting to see what signage they'll need, and then we provide those visuals. So we cut, we print, we laminate, we create them, we provide them to the service. We also deliver training, so we call it total communication training. So it's a two-hour training. training session for the staff that work in that community setting.
So we cover the background of speech, language, communication, a bit about the kind of facts and research behind it. And then we provide the staff with strategies that they can use to support people who maybe do find communication a bit tricky. And then we also, as part of the training, provide a Makaton taster as well.
So giving them a taste of some basic simple signing, Makaton signs they can use in a practice. And then we also provide a range of bespoke visuals depending on what the setting needs. So it could be like lanyard symbols, it could be communication boards, it could be social stories, maybe about the role of that community setting.
And maybe if I go into a group, we provide social stories for the members of the public to access about what that group involves.
So those are the three main elements.
We are really lucky in that the project has been really successful.
We've got loads and loads of places for now fully accredited.
So they've got their plaque you'll see on display with our logo on it and that just shows they've been through the training, they've got the visuals in place.
So if you go into our Facebook page, it's called South Ayrshire Communication Friendly Environments or our Instagram page which is SA Communication Friendly and you'll see all our places there that are fully accredited and we've got some videos and photos of those places with our plaques and we also do what's called Mappy Monday so we go out and we film a video with a large map of South Ayrshire and then the community section will put themselves on the map with a wee flag and they'll get their plaque so Facebook and Instagram are the best places to have a look for in terms of our communication friendly accredited places, we've got loads now that you can access.
So Ayr A&E department has got a whole range of communication friendly resources at the front desk. They've got a notice board about it, so they've got things like communication boards, social stories, if you're going for a jag, an injection for example, it'll talk you through what's going to happen. We've also got a photo book and reception as well so you can look through and see a photo of what's going to happen if you're going for an x-ray or an MRI scan. So Ayr A&E is really up on communication friendly.
We've also got Ayr Farm Park, Prestwick Airport, Jiggy Wrigglers and we've also got Ayr United dementia friendly walking football which is really nice so it's like your older population as well and Tempura and Spudbuds as well. So some restaurants coming on board and we're also hopefully going to have Dundonald Castle accredited and Ayrshire Hospice in the next little while as well.
So a whole range of different places that are communication friendly.
So I think it's really just about just being mindful of the way you interact with people. So thinking about the strategies that we cover in training, it's really about things you'll probably be already doing your day-to-day, but just really being aware of why we do them.
So things like being face to face when someone's interacting with you, being down at their level, that helps develop joint attention, it helps develop a more positive natural interaction, fosters things like lip reading, just make sure that the whole communication is just more comfortable and interactive and natural.
Also just giving processing time, so trying to talk a little bit slower because sometimes people who maybe do have a speech or language difficulty or a communication need just need a bit more processing time, so not talking too fast, giving them lots of time to respond, so we always say 10 seconds if you can, and trying to use a bit of day-to-day visuals, gesture, whether that's Makaton, whether that's some simple signs, just day-to-day, that's really how you can be communication friendly.
And also just thinking about your general signage in your setting as well, you know, we kind of say like what's behind the door. So if someone was to look at a door and think what's behind that I don't know thinking right can we put a label on that door, can we put a photo, can we put a symbol. It's just really thinking about can you navigate that environment successfully as well so anyone can find their way around.
it's really important so that people are really aware of the importance of inclusivity and accessibility. I think sometimes people maybe are not sure how to interact with someone who's maybe neurodiverse, what supports they need. And I think it's just about making sure that and making people aware that it's just about having like wee tweaks and adaptations. It's not about completely changing everything you do with people who are maybe neurodiverse.
It's just about little tweaks, little changes you can make in your day-to-day practice. to really make sure that they are included, that everything's accessible, we're breaking down those barriers and really about celebrating neurodiversity as well and making sure that people are aware that lots of people with neurodiversity have got so many other skills that they can offer us as well. So really about celebrating what they can bring to the table too.
.
Comments