Over the years I have worked with hundreds of children who all presented with their own specific characteristics but they all  struggled to communicate. 

 

For some, the difficulty lay in knowing the actual words, the vocabulary. For others, they knew the words but they couldn’t retrieve them. Some of them  spoke using the correct label but the wrong sounds and the words ‘got stuck’ and came out in a stutter. For many of the littlies the problem was they just didn’t speak - many pointed, used gesture, tugged mummy’s hand to show her what they wanted instead. For the hearing impaired children they had to learn to lip read, to be able to interpret and copy the correct lip patterns that form words. Sound itself was a complicated sequence of frequencies that needed careful unpacking and reorganising. For the elderly, they lost their communication overnight and felt scared and frustrated and my task was to help reassure them, practise word retrieval and to teach them once again how to form sentences.

 

We don’t realise how important communication is until it is either lost in injury or we are taken to a foreign country. We are social creatures who flourish with spoken interaction; both the old and the young need to be able to understand those around them and also to be understood.

 

When a child or adult struggles with speech or language the repercussions can be endless. When a child presents with a receptive language delay (when they can’t understand the meaning of the words they hear), the child learns to avoid conversation, learns to be disruptive rather than to have to admit they are unsure what to do.  If they can speak but no-one can understand what they are saying or always asks them to repeat themselves, they learn not to bother, and that their voice is too complicated and they would rather remain silent. If a child cannot say a specific speech sound, how can they learn to read it or to spell words that contain it? Speech and language is key to all learning and yet this area is often overlooked. 

 

I have the best job in the world because I can help these people. For when one can help improve a person's communication, one also witnesses the emotion and pride and confidence that also improves. Each person needs a bespoke therapy programme.

 

If you feel I can help then please contact me.