Niki Reid Speech & Language Therapy

Niki Reid Speech & Language Therapy Speech Therapy for children and young people on the Hibiscus Coast, Auckland. Also providing therapy via zoom to anywhere in NZ.

πŸ‘‹ Hi, I'm Niki Reid. Portrait drawn by my 4 year old πŸ’πŸΌβ€β™€οΈπŸŒ± I've been a speech therapist for 11 years now and have been ...
27/06/2025

πŸ‘‹ Hi, I'm Niki Reid. Portrait drawn by my 4 year old πŸ’πŸΌβ€β™€οΈ

🌱 I've been a speech therapist for 11 years now and have been slowly building my private practice over the last 3 years, working it around our young family.

🏑 I've had the absolute privilege of getting to work with so many families in our local community. Thank you for welcoming me into your homes, schools and childcare centres.

πŸ“– I'm about to enter into a new stage of life with my youngest starting school and I will have a little more availability for new clients. I'm excited to begin this next chapter of work life and school mum life.

β˜•οΈ If I get a minute to myself, you'll find me grabbing a coffee at or going for a walk on one of our many beautiful beaches here on the Coast.

Term 2 πŸ™Œ
27/06/2025

Term 2 πŸ™Œ

Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi || With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive. Lucky ...
27/06/2025

Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi || With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive.

Lucky to have these wonderful Coastie speech therapists to share knowledge and resources with 🌺

Term 1, it's been fun! Lots of learning, growing and making connections 🌈
01/04/2025

Term 1, it's been fun! Lots of learning, growing and making connections 🌈

Learning through play 🌟Flashcards have their place in speech therapy, but not when you're trying to grow language. Play ...
13/06/2024

Learning through play 🌟

Flashcards have their place in speech therapy, but not when you're trying to grow language. Play is the best way to learn new words. Comment on your child's play, talking about the objects but also naming actions, and using fun words like yum! wow! uh oh!

Lovely handouts by to send home to whanau with ideas of how to add language into activities.

It isn't a day of speech therapy if Pop up Pirate doesn't make an appearance at least once πŸ΄β€β˜ οΈ
12/06/2024

It isn't a day of speech therapy if Pop up Pirate doesn't make an appearance at least once πŸ΄β€β˜ οΈ

Been a bit quiet on social media but very busy working with my awesome clients. Using the engaging resources from to wo...
05/06/2024

Been a bit quiet on social media but very busy working with my awesome clients.

Using the engaging resources from to work on some lateral lisps.

What is a lateral lisp? To put it simply, it's when the airflow comes down the sides of the tongue instead of flowing straight down the middle. This results in the S sound sounding slushy. It can also affect Z, SH, CH, J.

Lateral lisps are not developmental, meaning your child will probably not outgrow it.

Lateral lisps can be tricky to change so it's incredibly rewarding to see these kids working hard and making progress to improve their clarity.

This may just look like a duplo tower but there was a lot of imaginative play happening. Santa was on his way with prese...
21/03/2024

This may just look like a duplo tower but there was a lot of imaginative play happening. Santa was on his way with presents for Elsa and of course he needed a very tall chimney to slide down.

If I was trying to add language to a duplo activity, it would be easy to comment on the colours, shapes and sizes of the blocks. I could talk about basic concepts like tall and short, on top, under and next to, together and apart.

This is all wonderful language to model, but if my child is focused on the story they are building, then it's more helpful for me to follow their lead and help them grow their story.

I can do this by
- Asking open ended questions like 'and then what happened?'
- Joining in the story by becoming a character in their world, kids love silly voices!
- Prompting them to think about the WHere and WHen of their story. 'Oh, it must be Christmas time (when) if Santa is coming'. 'Looks like Elsa is in her ice castle (where)'.
- Model feeling words 'I wonder if Elsa is feeling excited that Santa is coming'

"The lady with the bags" remarked a teacher as I walked through a school today. You can plan as much as you like, but yo...
27/02/2024

"The lady with the bags" remarked a teacher as I walked through a school today. You can plan as much as you like, but you just never know what you may unexpectedly need during a session. Just call me Mary Poppins β˜‚οΈ

Building burgers as we practice our S blends. Did you know? S blends should be mastered around 4 years old. If your chil...
21/02/2024

Building burgers as we practice our S blends.

Did you know? S blends should be mastered around 4 years old.

If your child is leaving off the S sound at the start of S blend words (e.g. 'top' for 'stop', or 'pider' for 'spider') this is called Cluster Reduction.

Cluster Reduction is a common pattern that most children use as their speech develops (we call it a phonological process) however you should start to see this pattern disappear by age 4.

Cluster Reduction of S blends can have a significant impact on the overall clarity of speech; how much you can understand.

Think about how your child says 'spiderman', 'star', 'swing', 'snow', or 'sky'. Are they using Cluster Reduction?

First session back for 2024 and the kinetic sand was a hit! Thanks for the idea
07/02/2024

First session back for 2024 and the kinetic sand was a hit! Thanks for the idea

Board games are a favourite in our house at the moment, especially with all these rainy days in Auckland! You may not re...
17/05/2023

Board games are a favourite in our house at the moment, especially with all these rainy days in Auckland!

You may not realise how much amazing language input you are providing while you're playing a game of monopoly with your kids.

Here's just a few of the ways that board games support language development:

- Turn taking practice, learning to wait and use phrases like 'my turn' and 'your turn'
- Teaching basic concepts like forward & backwards, up & down, start & end, in front & behind
- Practising early numeracy skills like one to one counting to move your counter along the spaces on the board, recognising numbers on a dice
- Following 'if, then' instructions e.g. If you land on that space, then you have to pay some of your money to your sister.
- Developing understanding of categories, a lot of card games for young kids are based on collecting cards of the same category.

Swipe for some games that both Miss 5 and Miss 3 enjoy playing together (with my help). And let me know what games are a hit in your whānau.

Address

91 Roberts Road
Whangaparaoa
0930

Opening Hours

Wednesday 9am - 4pm
Friday 9am - 4pm

Telephone

+64223069819

Website

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