This work describes and includes a practical assessment of functional communication in four parts: it considers communication skills from the earliest interactions to the skills of children working within level one of the National Curriculum English; it also aims to enable the reader to build an assessment of "how" and "what" a child is communicating, and to assess a range of communication difficulties; a completed assessment supplies information to construct an individual, total communication system for each child, which can include sign, symbol and speech output devices; and the book should enable differing professionals to assess together using shared framework and to then plan realistic support for an individual child.