Shout it from the rooftops: How ministers can solve the speech and language crisis

When Jerry started school, he could not speak a word. Like many autistic children, he would not make eye contact and lacked the desire to communicate with the world. Jerry is one of the estimated 10 per cent of children who have serious speech and language problems. Now 10, though, he is a confident talker who represents his class on the school council and has won a coveted place at Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, east London, one of the Government's flagship schools, where six applicants compete for every place.

"I have learnt how to speak a lot," says Jerry, who over the past six years has been taught all the conversational skills that most people take for granted: how to make eye contact, to take turns in a conversation and to form the words he needs. "Before I didn't know how to speak, but now I find it easy. I go to language club, where we talk about what we did at the weekend and we like to talk."

It has been a slow and intensive process, but Jerry's astonishing progress has also transformed his future, enabling him to make friends, go to normal lessons and go on to attend a mainstream secondary school.

Speech and language problems affect three times as many children as dyslexia and 10 times as many children as autism, but the issue has failed to be recognised as a major problem, despite the crucial role it plays in shaping children's lives. A growing number of children – up to 50 per cent in England's poorest areas – are starting school with severe language delays. Experts have warned that parents' failure to talk to their children is a time bomb that threatens to destroy the life chances of thousands of young people.

It is in this climate that the Government has set out to tackle the "hidden disability" of speech and language problems. Next Tuesday, John Bercow, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, whose four-year-old son Oliver has verbal dyspraxia, a condition that affects speaking ability, will publish the findings of his 10-month review into provision for children who have speech problems. The Government commissioned the Bercow Review in September 2007 because of dissatisfaction on the part of families of children who have speech problems.

The appointment of a Tory MP to head a Government review was controversial, but Bercow has insisted his inquiry is above "petty party-political point- scoring". Both Labour and the Conservatives must shoulder responsibility for weaknesses with language provision because they were "long-standing and have festered under successive administrations," he says.

"The Government has made literacy and numeracy a major priority, and that's great – they are important," he says. "But the ability to communicate is fundamental. It is the foundation life skill for the 21st century, the indispensable prerequisite for children and young people, to learn, achieve and make friends."

Bercow is calling for speech and language to be put firmly in the spotlight with a Year of Speech and Communication, similar to the way ministers have branded 2008 as the Year of Reading. He believes a "communication champion" is needed to push home the message about the importance of speech and communication to parents and the wider public.

Nursery rhymes and simple songs could be used to raise public awareness of the importance of talking to children from the earliest possible age, while parents would be provided with better information to help them spot potential problems in their children's development. Early intervention is the key, he says.

"If children get help early, they can learn to communicate, make friends and get an education. If they do not, they face a whole range of problems from emotional and psychological difficulties, lower education attainment, poorer job prospects and a possible descent into criminality."

Experts believe that much more needs to be done to embed speech and vocabulary teaching into the curriculum. Bercow hopes to solve this with better teacher training – so that all new teachers know how to develop children's communication skills – and a requirement for all adults who work with children to have had some training in speech and language.

Families face a "postcode lottery" and many have battled for years to secure help for their children. Bercow hopes to tackle this by setting out a basic entitlement of what help a child with speech problems should receive "whether they are brought up in Haringey, Hull or Hampshire".

Bercow's inquiry found that there was widespread dissatisfaction with services for children who have language problems. More than 2,000 people responded to the Bercow Review consultation, including 1,000 families of children who have speech problems.

Fifty five per cent of parents said they were unhappy with the help provided to their child.

They told the MP that their children were left to struggle in silence and that a policy of early intervention had not been pursued as agencies bickered with parents, argued with one another and lost precious time to help children.

Tyssen primary school in Hackney, east London, impressed Bercow during his inquiry as it is already doing many of the things that he will recommend next week. The London borough of Hackney has seen a remarkable turnaround in its speech and language services. Six years ago, it received the second-highest number of complaints of any service provided by the primary health trust and parents faced an 11-month wait for a first appointment to see a speech therapist. Now they are seen within five weeks, complaints have plummeted and parents can bring their children to drop-in sessions to have their speech and language skills assessed by professionals.

The joint working of its health and education services is hailed as excellent by Bercow. But, sadly, this cooperative approach is rare. All too often parents are caught in the crossfire between health and education services that blame each other for systemic failures.

Tyssen school was chosen for a visit by the review team because it showcases Hackney's joint working and combines early intervention in its children's centre with a specialist unit for autistic pupils in the main school. In addition, it aims to spread its focus on speech and language skills throughout the school for the benefit of all pupils.

Sue Windross, the head teacher, is a passionate believer in spreading good communication skills throughout the school, not just focusing on them in the context of speech problems. "There is a growing awareness that you can't put all the children with speech and language problems in special schools or resourced units, because there are too many of them and you risk creating schools within schools," she says. "Speech and language is a growing issue for a wider number of children and it is vital that this help is shared for the benefit of all."

The review will also call for an audit of the numbers of speech therapists after parents complained of a shortage of therapists. However, Bercow believes that much of this problem can be solved by improving the skills of the existing workforce so that teachers and teaching assistants can take on some of the tasks originally carried out only by therapists.

Beth Junor, a speech therapist based at Tyssen school three days a week, agrees that although there are children who will always need the intensive support of a speech therapist, the role of therapists has to change. "There isn't enough time for me to see everyone on my caseload one to one in a nice, quiet room, and it isn't always desirable.

"An important part of my role is helping teachers and teaching assistants carry on programmes that I have designed. Parents want their child to have time with a speech therapist, but that isn't always the best way of doing things."

According to Stephen Parsons, Hackney's speech-and-language therapy team manager, parents will need time to regain their faith in a system that they believe has failed their children. "Now we have early intervention, so by the time their child comes into school, they will be familiar with me and our service. Before they were on a war footing because they had been on a waiting list for so long and had to complain a lot to get anywhere."

Language campaigners are excited about what they hope will be a new era.

"This isn't just a special- needs issue any more," says Anita Kerwin-Nye, of the charity I CAN. "And it isn't about a small number of children. The speech and language support needs to be much stronger for all."