Varisha Hutheram Speech and Language Therapy

14/01/2026

14/01/2026

Really, really like this chart!

https://connectingspeech.com/blog/f/the-new-improved-speech-acquisition-chart-and-how-to-read-it

09/01/2026

This week we are thinking about early communication!

Credit: The SLT Scrapbook

07/01/2026

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧'𝗦 𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗘𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗬❓
⦿ Communication
⦿ Listening Skills
⦿ Social Emotional
⦿ Observation Skills
⦿ Hand-Eye Coordination
⦿ Problem Solving
⦿ Mathematics
⦿ Memory
⦿ Gross Motor Skills
⦿ Fine Motor Skills
⦿ Sorting Skills
⦿ Pattern Recognition

06/01/2026

Some children read before they can explain what they’ve read.
They decode effortlessly, memorise whole books, and recognise words long before school — yet comprehension, communication, and social understanding lag behind.

This is hyperlexia.

It’s not “just gifted reading”, and it’s not something to train out of a child. It’s a unique neurodevelopmental profile where pattern-spotting comes before meaning, and words feel safer and more predictable than people.

Understanding hyperlexia helps adults stop overestimating comprehension, stop mislabelling behaviours as obsessional, and start offering the right kind of support — support that honours strengths while gently scaffolding understanding.

Save this if you work with, teach, or love a child whose reading ability doesn’t tell the whole story.

Free download available, check visual for instructions to request. Be sure to LIKE the post also.

06/01/2026

05/01/2026

18/12/2025

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (Verbal Dyspraxia) is a neurological speech disorder. People with Verbal Childhood Apraxia of Speech have difficulty making the precise movements required for speech but there is no evidence of nerve or muscle damage. They have difficulty producing individual speech sounds and sequencing sounds together in words. This can make their speech unintelligible even to family members. There is no quick fix and no cure. People with CAS need years of intensive speech therapy with a speech and language therapist to have any chance of improving their speech. Learning to talk is a very slow process. Once our speech improves we can be left with speech sound errors and our speech might not be perfect. We can be left with word retrieval difficulties making our speech seem disjointed. CAS is a diagnosis which can stand alone or can co occur with other diagnoses.

I have lived with this diagnosis for 24 years. I have had to fight for my voice, receiving speech and language therapy up until I was 15 years old. That’s 13 years of therapy, learning to speak and I am the first to admit that my speech isn’t perfect, even now.

But I refuse to remain silent.

There are too many others living with this diagnosis and not receiving the understanding they deserve. There are still too many people in the world who have never heard of CAS. People who think that it’s just a “speech delay,” “tongue tie” or my favourite “laziness.” CAS is a very real, life long, neurological speech disorder.

Let's make our voices heard and get some understanding out there for everyone living with and touched by CAS. Don't be that family member, friend, teacher or work colleague who lacks compassion and understanding.

12/12/2025

If you know anything about multilingual language development, you’ve probably heard of the silent period: the phase of second language acquisition where children go silent in both languages while they absorb information about L2.

But hang on a sec…is that even a real thing? Is there scientific evidence to back it up, or is it just a wacky idea from the 1970s that somehow got established as a fact?

Our new review “Breaking the silence on the ‘silent period’” takes a deep dive into the evidence to tell us what SLPs need to know about how emergent bilingual children really communicate in the early stages of second language acquisition, when it’s time to make a speech referral, and how we can help these kids participate, communicate, and thrive in the classroom. Read it and earn 18 minutes of DEI credit at https://theinformedslp.com/review/Breaking-the-silence-on-the-silent-period

The research:
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000924000151
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.09.001

[Visual description: Image text reads, "Silent bilingual kids or oversimplified science? Let’s separate second language acquisition fact from fiction."]