Speech Freedom

Speech Freedom Speech and Language Therapist I work with both adults and children. For children I provide both therapy and training.

For adults I specialise in voice therapy for people with hoarse voices, LSVT for people with Parkinson's disease and voice feminisation for transgender (transexual, gender dysphoria) people.

07/05/2026

After I created this worksheet I printed it off and started filling it out at the table. Mostly to see if I'd drawn big enough bubbles for each thing.

My middle pda kid saw me and wanted to fill in some of it. I told him this one was mine and I printed him his own.

He filled in the whole thing, verbalising his sensory preferences and experiences the whole way. He wrote it all himself.

We compared preferences. We talked about the ways that we are similar and different.
He referenced the brain battery from the other day.

It made my heart happy that he had so much language to explain how he experiences the world.

I feel like there are lots of dark times.
But there are also light ones.

You know?

Em 🌈

07/05/2026

One thing that has stood out again and again with the five new PDA children I’ve met this week (all under 10) is the strong drive for what Kristy Forbes describes as 'equity-seeking behaviour'.

Yes, we’ve had conversations about dinosaurs, Minecraft, facts, deep questions, and wonderfully random observations about life… but we have also had a LOT of fart jokes, poo jokes, toilet humour, shocking words, and attempts to get a reaction.

This is often misunderstood. Adults can see it as “attention-seeking”, “immature”, “rude”, or “behavioural”. But actually, very often, it is relational.

For many PDA-ers, humour, especially taboo humour, can be a way to reduce social hierarchy, level the playing field with adults, create connection through shared laughter, manage anxiety and uncertainty, test whether a relationship feels safe, gain a sense of control in an interaction that otherwise feels unequal or ischarge nervous system tension

Toilet humour is wonderfully powerful for children because adults react to it. It instantly changes the emotional tone of an interaction. It can move things away from demands, intensity, or vulnerability and into silliness and co-regulation.

And importantly, many PDA children are incredibly aware of power dynamics. Much more than people realise. Equity-seeking behaviours are often about trying to feel emotionally safe in relationships that otherwise feel exposing, uncertain, or one-down.

So when a child spends ten minutes talking about farts in the middle of an assessment, I’m usually not thinking:
“How do I stop this?”

I’m thinking:
“How are they trying to regulate this interaction?”
“How can I join them without too much inappropriateness on my part?”
“What does this tell me about safety, connection, and hierarchy?”

Sometimes the fart jokes ARE the communication.

02/05/2026

This week I welcomed 4 new BEING ME groups. It was wonderful to meet them!

There is a lot of thought and time that goes into trying to create an environment that feels comfortable for the young people.

I gather detailed information ahead of starting, consider needs, interests (and if we have consent to include these in small ways) and things that may be hard for them.

I communicate with parents/carers to scaffold the beginning of the programme and keep in touch throughout taking on board what worked, what didn’t, what suggestions they and their young people have.

The content of BEING ME is important without a doubt - we share up-to-date, affirming, value-neutral information about Autistic experience and well-being and invite the young people to explore what they think and feel.

But so much of it is about the ‘being with’…

Being with others who may experience the world in similar ways.

Seeing them. Hearing from them. Realising you’re not alone.

At GROVE - being with adults who don’t use compliance-based strategies and instead make everything genuinely optional.

Who welcome and model giving our body and mind what it needs - stimming, movement, another activity at the same time, participation that is big, small, silent, internal, spoken, typed… or not there at all.

We want the young people to experience what it feels like to be with others where they belong. Not through performance but as their authentic selves.

Easy? Nope. Certainly not!

We remain humble and reflective - guided by the ethical grounding of our Neuro-affirming Foundations.

We don’t have a magic formula for this.

It won’t suit everyone and it would be unfair to claim it would.

We cannot promise set ‘outcomes’ for young people and families.

For some young people you and we may notice a shift, for others we may not see this outwardly but we hope seeds of acceptance and understanding have been planted.

I found out after a group earlier in the week that one young person had shared something with us that only their parent knew before! They had never told anyone else! Wow.

During the session I had replied in an honest way saying ‘I believe you’ and sharing a similar experience for me personally and some wider Autistic experience.

That wouldn’t have happened without the ‘being with’ and I am so, so glad that it did.

I wonder what the journey will be for these new young people…

Do you have an Autistic young person who may benefit from this?

Summer groups are also open for booking on our website.

30/04/2026

Are you a mental health professional thinking about training in EMDR? Come along to my introductory webinar on May 6th to hear more about it and to see if it might be the modality for you.

EMDR is a trauma-focused therapy which is recommended in the NICE guidelines. It is evidence-based and can be highly effective with diverse populations.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1975840288491?aff=oddtdtcreato

30/04/2026

We are sooo sick of being told our children need to be more resilient!

WE ARE RECLAIMING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE RESILIENT WHEN YOU ARE NEURODIVERGENT!

But heres the thing, i think we need to change the narrative around resilience, I think our kids do need to build a resilience, but the resilience our kids need is resilience for the bu****it of expectations placed on them to fit in and tolerate hostility, harm & distress from unsafe environments and people. They do not need resilience from a neurotypical perspective. They need it from a neuro affirming perspective!

We need to build armour against judgment, not pressure to conform.

Resilience is teaching our kids that some people don’t “get it” and that’s a them problem! Not an us problem.

Resilience is teaching our kids that sometimes people will be judgemental, ignorant, non-empathetic and they are not our people and that’s their loss!

Resilience is teaching our kids that the world is not always ready for us or accepting or understanding of our experiences and needs. And that’s on the world not us!

I will not teach my children to be “resilient” to people, places or environments that are uncomfortable and cause distress!

I will teach them to recognise and trust themselves to know what is uncomfortable and causes distress and to have autonomy and confidence to make themselves comfortable even when others don’t approve!

That’s resilience, that’s safety and that’s vital.

30/04/2026

Scrolling through FB today and reading some emails, I am constantly amazed at the lack of knowledge about where to start with supporting those with SM especially teenagers. Before we jump to “getting a teenager talking”, we need to ask a much more important question:

Do they feel safe enough to communicate at all?

One of the biggest misunderstandings around selective mutism is the assumption that silence is simply a lack of speaking behaviour that can be “worked on” through prompting, encouragement, rewards, speech practice, or direct elicitation.

But speech does not sit at the top of the pyramid.

It sits at the very end of a long chain of neurophysiological, emotional, sensory, relational, and communicative processes.

Many selectively mute teenagers are living in a state of chronic threat. Their nervous systems are not calmly choosing not to speak — they are protecting them. In that state, direct demands for speech can increase panic, shame, freezing, dissociation, and avoidance.

Before speech work comes:

• felt safety
• trust
• co-regulation
• autonomy
• reduction of performance pressure
• predictable interactions
• sensory safety
• relationships without hidden demands
• acceptance of all forms of communication
• reduced monitoring and scrutiny
• opportunities for success without speech
• nervous system regulation
• connection before expectation

And perhaps most importantly:

The young person needs repeated experiences of adults who are safe to be silent with.

Teenagers with selective mutism are often exhausted by years of being watched, prompted, praised for tiny verbal responses, discussed in front of others, or treated as communication projects rather than human beings.

Speech may emerge when safety emerges.

And sometimes progress looks like:
– staying in the room
– communicating nonverbally
– tolerating proximity
– laughing
– texting
– whispering to one trusted person
– showing personality through actions before words

Those things are not “nothing”.

They are foundations.

If we skip the foundations and go straight to eliciting speech, we risk building intervention on anxiety rather than connection.

Communication grows in safety, not surveillance.

There’s lots in my upcoming book about this and Dawn and I will be delivering training and workshops on it

29/04/2026

Trans Rights Won in the High Court Today. Did You Hear About It?
The Office for Students tried to fine the University of Sussex £585,000 for having a policy that said transphobia is not tolerated and that staff should positively represent trans people. It was the largest fine the OfS had ever attempted to levy against a university. It was designed to send a message to every institution in the country about what happens when you protect transgender students and staff.
The High Court threw it out completely today.
The judge found the OfS had closed its mind to any outcome other than finding the university guilty before the investigation was finished. The regulator interviewed Kathleen Stock. It did not interview a single person from the university despite the university repeatedly requesting to be heard. That is not regulation. That is a verdict dressed up as a process.
The judge also found the OfS took a fundamentally flawed approach to deciding what academic freedom even means. The university’s vice chancellor called it a devastating indictment of the impartiality and competence of the OfS, implicating its operations, leadership, governance and strategy.
Kathleen Stock resigned from Sussex after student protests over her views. She was not dismissed. She chose to leave. The OfS built a £585,000 case on the basis that a policy saying transphobia is not tolerated had made her more cautious about expressing her beliefs. The High Court today said that reasoning did not hold and that the process used to reach it was biased from the start.
The OfS said the outcome was disappointing and that it did not accept the finding of bias. Its chairman said he would consider over several weeks whether to appeal. The interim chief executive said he was pleased that a dozen institutions including Sussex had amended policies which restricted freedom of speech as a result of the investigation.
Read that again. The regulator whose investigation was found to be biased, closed-minded and procedurally flawed is describing universities removing trans inclusive policies as a positive outcome it is proud of.
That tells you everything about what this investigation was actually for.
Universities across the country had been watching this case with alarm. A fine of that size for having a trans inclusive policy would have sent a chilling effect through every institution in the country. Institutions would have removed protections for transgender students and staff not because they wanted to but because they could not afford not to. That outcome has been stopped today.
From April 2027 universities could face fines of £500,000 or two percent of their income for failing to protect free speech. The regulator that was just found to have closed its mind to any outcome other than the one it wanted is about to be given even stronger powers.
That part of the story is not over.
But today the University of Sussex stood its ground. Today a High Court judge looked at how this fine was issued and found it could not stand. Today transgender and non-binary students at universities across England got something they have not had much of recently.
A win.
Take it. They are rare enough to be worth naming when they arrive.
Now Let Us Talk About How This Was Reported
The BBC covered this story today.
It reported the High Court ruling. It covered the fine being overturned. It quoted the vice chancellor and the OfS. It explained the procedural findings against the regulator.
It did not use the word transgender once.
Think about that. A case that began because a university had a transgender and non-binary inclusion policy. A fine issued because that policy was deemed to create a chilling effect on gender critical views. A High Court ruling that found the regulator was biased in how it investigated that policy. A story entirely about what protection transgender people deserve in academic institutions.
Reported by the BBC without mentioning transgender people.
Compare that to how the BBC covers stories that go the other way. When a ruling or a policy or a statement can be framed as a concern about transgender inclusion in spaces, sport or healthcare, transgender people are named, their advocates are quoted, the community’s response is sought. The word transgender appears in the headline.
Today it did not appear at all.
This is not a small thing. Language shapes what the public understands about who is affected by a story. When transgender people are named in stories about threats to them they become the subject of the story. When they are removed from the language of a story about a victory for their rights they become invisible even in the moment of winning.
The BBC has a responsibility to report accurately on who is affected by the stories it covers. Today a university successfully defended a transgender inclusive policy against a biased regulatory process. The people that policy exists to protect deserved to be named in that coverage.
They were not.
That is worth noticing. That is worth saying out loud. And that is worth asking the BBC to explain.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ BBC News

Address

Bristol
BS34

Telephone

+447914933160

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Speech Freedom posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Category