Speech and Language Therapists support a child and their family with the child’s communication needs by:
If you are concerned about your child’s communication for any reason, please contact me and we can discuss what would be appropriate as next steps for your child.
Assessments and therapy are tailored to your child and their needs.
Information is gathered from a range of sources including family, education settings and other carers/activities important to them to inform their care.
Approaches used will be supported by research in addition to being informed by service users and their families.
I am committed to continuing to update my practice in line with the best available evidence and training.
Reports, goals and therapy activities will all focus on what is important to your child.
Areas of strength will be always be used alongside supporting areas of need.
I support children by engaging with their interests, modelling communication in all modalities and work using neurodiversity affirming approaches.
I model communication and support children to say what they want to say as opposed to using compliance or rewards based approaches when working with autistic children.
I will assess your child’s Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN), along with identifying their strengths at home, at school and in other activities through a combination of informal and formal assessment activities and information from adults and the child.
This can be delivered at home or in an education setting using an agreed upon approach.
Therapy will always be enhanced by environmental strategies to carry over progress into all aspects of their daily life.
I can provide a wide range of support for education settings to support SLCN and create a more supportive learning environment for all children.
Instead of asking your child to say things or copy things, model what you think they would like to say or the correct way to say things.
If you are always asking your child questions, try changing some of these questions into comments. For example, instead of asking "What are you posting?" try commenting on what you see, "You're posting the red one!"
Model a wide range of phrases and types of words at an appropriate level for your child. This is typically using 1-2 more words than the length of sentences your child is normally using. For example, if a child is using 2-3 word phrases such as "more biscuit" or '"look big leaf", then you could reply 'more cheese biscuits' or "Look at that big leaf up there.".
If your child is struggling with their speech sounds or their language skills, have a look at these top tips and see if you can use any of these when talking and playing with your child.
Supporting children with Speech and Language Difficulties to be confident, happy communicators using a holistic strengths based approach.
Dedicate 5 minutes per day to spending time playing with your child. Follow their lead, do what they want to do and take the pressure off 'teaching' them.