The Expressive Child

09/07/2025

04/01/2025

Loving this by thank you!!! If you have any influence over classrooms, you need to consider this.
I spend so much time helping people I work with to be confident self-advocators, and appearing 'different' is the biggest barrier! Not only does this help them, but also the other children who need to self-advocate but don't have a therapist working with them on how to do that. Everything by is great, and this one is absolutely spot on.

14/11/2024

Just some topics people don't realise we do in speech and language therapy. I love working on these with my young-adult clients. Underpinning everyone in this list is communication - either understanding or being able to express yourself.

04/03/2024

I've really enjoyed writing this article for The Link magazine. Autistic girls make up a huge group but they are under-diagnosed, under-recognised and under-supported. I'm so passionate about working with any young people whose mental health is affected by difficulties with communication, whether it's verbal or non-verbal communication, and many autistic girls fall into this camp.
https://speechandlanguage.info/the-link-magazine

28/02/2024

Focus on the area where your child can do things when you work alongside them to suport them. This provides the right level of challenge, and keeps things achievable.

27/02/2024

If you speak another language, keep speaking that language with your child, even if it isn't English. Your child will be exposed to plenty of English and won't be held back by this. It is more important to be exposed to the language you are most confident speaking and to get a good language model - of any language. It helps develop the language centre of the brain!

07/02/2024

Come & see us at on Monday 26th Feb for the first in our series of talks on children's speech, language and interaction development.

08/01/2024

It's not unusual for parents to start worrying at this time of the year. It's common to wait for a term to see how children settle in with new teachers and classes, or into new schools. But if things are still worrying you, now is a good time to get in touch, as we have a long stretch before the summer holidays (already??!) to work on those tricky areas and help get things developing.

06/12/2023

Eye contact can be really hard. If it's a tricky topic, or you feel awkward then it's easier to not be looking directly at someone. If you are autistic then eye contact can also feel painful.

Having something to focus on together, rather than each other is much easier. That's why we're often found in therapy sessions doing clay modelling or colouring with our teens whilst discussing friendship issues or other emotive topics.

27/11/2023

We cap each therapist's caseload to ensure we can deliver the best there is to offer

25/11/2023

There's more to consider than just intelligibility, and if you are concerned you should always seek advice from a Speech and Language therapist. But these percentages are a good start.

24/11/2023

I wish we could provide free therapy. It makes me flinch knowing that a private business offering therapy makes money.

But you know something, it doesn't actually make a lot. By the time you've made sure that the amazing therapists working for you have been paid what they deserve for the incredible work they do, with such energy and dedication, and which reflects their YEARS of training and professional development, AND and you've capped their caseload so that they have enough time to REALLY think about each child they work with and prepare bespoke therapy that is engaging and clinically excellent, and then made sure that every resource required is provided there's not much left. And there's still the same costs as for any business - staff development, insurance, energy bills, premises (rental & upkeep), travel, accountancy, software...

So, when I hear people grumble about the costs of therapy, I get it, I really do, but I promise no-one is getting rich in this line of business or career choice!