There is limited provision of speech therapy resources to social education centres throughout the UK. Thus the need to provide the best possible service is particularly pressing. This article describes a short initial measure for determining SEC students' needs which will allow grouping for more thorough, ongoing assessment. Five different treatment groups are proposed.The assessment measure comprises a simple questionnaire, for use with student and key worker together, which can be reliably used to group students. It is suggested that it can be used in the first instance without the speech therapist having prior knowledge of the student. The implications of the measure are discussed.