Getting down on their level: Why face-to-face play is a speech therapy superpower

ByLondon Speech and Feeding June 24, 2026June 12, 2026

As parents, we spend a massive portion of our days multi-tasking. We are talking to our toddlers while washing dishes, shouting encouraging words from across the living room while folding laundry, or answering their questions from a few feet above them while walking through the supermarket. It is a completely natural dynamic, after all, the adult world happens up here, and their world happens down there.

But when it comes to actively boosting your child’s speech and language development, one of the simplest, most profound changes you can make costs absolutely nothing and requires no special training.

It is simply this: Get down on the floor, sit cross-legged, and get face-to-face.

At London Speech and Feeding I call this physical positioning ‘face to face’. It is also one of the major ‘Hanen Programme’ Strategies. It completely reshapes how your child interacts with you, transforms how they process language, and turns ordinary playtime into an instant communication opportunity.

Our mouth is the magic: Visual cueing and speech imitation

When a child is learning to talk, they aren’t just listening to the sounds you make; they are watching how you make them.

Speech is an incredibly complex motor skill. To say a single word, the brain must coordinate the lips, tongue, teeth, jaw, and vocal cords in a fraction of a second. When you speak to your child from a standing or even a seated chair position while they are on the floor, your mouth is entirely out of their direct line of sight. They miss the visual roadmap of speech.

When you sit right in front of them at eye level:

They see mouth shapes: They can see how your lips round for an /OO/ sound, how your teeth touch your lip for an /F/ sound, or how wide your mouth opens for an /AH/.
They read facial expressions: Emotions give context to words. Seeing your eyes widen with excitement or your eyebrows lift in surprise helps them map meaning onto the vocabulary you are using.
They mimic naturally: By putting your face directly in your child’s field of vision, you make it infinitely easier for her or him to try and copy your oral movements.

If you are working on a specific word like ‘pop’ while blowing bubbles or ‘more’ during snack time getting your face just a foot or two away from your child gives her or him the front-row seat she or he needs to learn the mechanics of that word.

Unlocking joint attention: The foundation of all languages

Before a child can say their first words, they need to master a milestone called joint attention.

What is joint attention?

It is the magic moment when a child looks at an object (like a toy train), looks up at you to share their excitement, and then looks back at the object. It is a three-way loop of shared experience.

Without joint attention, communication cannot thrive. If a child is entirely hyper-focused on a toy and ignoring your presence, or if you are commenting on a book they aren’t looking at, true communication isn’t happening.

When you get down on the floor on a play mat, you naturally insert yourself into their bubble. You aren’t a distant narrator anymore; you are a co-player. Being at their level makes it incredibly easy for their eyes to flick from the toy straight to your face. This shared gaze is the exact moment language takes root. It signals to the child, ‘We are experiencing this together, and this thing we are doing has a name.’

The ‘wait and see’ technique

Once you are down on the floor, the temptation is often to take over by pointing at everything, asking a million questions like ‘What’s that?’, ‘Is that a blue train?’, or somehow driving the play.

Instead, the most powerful thing you can do at eye level is to practise the ‘Wait and See’ technique.

In the video clip you can see this exact dynamic in action. Look at how I am sitting cross-legged on the mat, at eye level with the toddler. Notice how my hands are on the toy container, but my eyes are locked on the child. I am not forcing the interaction; instead, I am waiting.

Here is how you can use this strategy at home:

Set the stage: Get down on their level with a high-interest toy that requires help (like a wind-up toy, bubbles, or a tight-lidded box with toys inside).
Create anticipation: Hold the object near your face or place your hands on it, but don’t open or activate it right away.
Lean in and wait: Lean slightly forward, open your eyes wide, adopt an expectant facial expression, and completely pause. Count to five or ten in your head. Do not say anything.
Capture the gaze: Wait for the exact moment your child looks up from the toy to meet your eyes, as if to say, ‘Well? Are you going to open it?’
Reward the eye contact: The instant they make eye contact, deliver the language reward! Model a simple, functional word like ‘Open!’, ‘Go!’, or ‘Look!’ as you immediately do the action.

By pausing and waiting at eye level, you create a ‘communication temptation’. The child learns that looking at you and engaging with your face is the key that unlocks the fun.

Making it a daily habit

You don’t need to spend hours a day sitting on the floor to see a difference. Start small by dedicating just 10 to 15 minutes of undivided, face-to-face play time each day. Turn off the television, put your phone in another room, get down on their level, and let them lead the play while you focus on being their visual communication partner.

Whether you’re opening a little toy briefcase, pushing a plastic train along a track, or stacking blocks, remember: your face is the best toy in the room.

Are you wondering if your toddler’s speech and language milestones are on track? At London Speech and Feeding I love helping families navigate early communication. Feel free to explore my services page and reach out directly to schedule a consultation.

Sonja McGeachie

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists Member

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

Speech and Language Therapy

What is Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and what does a Speech Therapist do?
ByLondon Speech and Feeding September 9, 2021January 31, 2023
What is Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and what does a Speech Therapist do?

Speech and language therapists provide treatment, support and care for children and adults who have difficulties with communication, eating, drinking and swallowing. We help children and adults who have problems speaking and communicating.

How to find the perfect therapist for my child/client:

There are a huge number of speech and language difficulties, or feeding and swallowing problems that we can help with and the first thing to think about is what age group the person is you are seeking help for. Most SLT’s specialise in a range of disorders and treatments and they often treat specific age ranges. This could be, for instance, very young children up to 3 years, or school aged children, adolescents or just adults. Once you have narrowed it down to age and general area of difficulty you can then go and seek your perfect SLT match.

Generally it is my view that SLT’s with a narrow area of specialist interest are most likely to help you better if the problem you or your child/adult is having is significant and/or profound. For example, if your child has a very severe stutter/stammer but is otherwise developing fine and has good skills all round, then I would recommend to look for an SLT who only specialises in stammering/stuttering, or has only a small range of other specialist areas related to stammering , such as speech and language delay.

The reason is that it is a tall order for any professional to stay up to date with latest research, latest clinical developments and training for more than, say, five distinct areas of interest.

However, a more generalist Speech therapist who has lots of experience in many different areas could be a very good option for your child or adult who has more general speech and language delay in a number of areas, perhaps a global delay or a syndrome which means that their learning is delayed in general. It also means that your child might benefit from a Generalist SLT because they have many more tools in their SLT bag and your child might need a variety of approaches for several areas.

A good place to start is www.asltip.com which is the Association for Independent Speech and Language Therapists in the UK. Any SLT registered with ASLTIP will also be registered with the HCPC (Health Care Professionals Council), as well as RCSLT (Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists). These two important UK professional regulatory bodies ensure all its members are fully qualified, and are fully up to date with latest developments within their areas of work.

Here you can enter your post code and look for a therapist near you and you can look for specific problems such as stammering for example and narrow down your search. Most therapists have a website which you can then access too. I would recommend you speak to a few therapists on your list and then go with the person you had the best rapport with. You and the therapist will be spending a lot of time together and you will need to feel that you trust them and that you can relax into the process.

How I can help you:

I have 3 main areas of specialism:

Parent Child Interaction Coaching

This is an amazing way to help children with the following difficulties:
- Social Communication Difficulties, Autistic Spectrum Disorders and
- Speech and Language Delay – for children under the age of 4 years old, this is my preferred way of working because it is so very effective and proven to work. If your child is not developing words or not interacting, has reduced attention and listening and you feel is not progressing or, in fact even regressing, then this way of working is the best. For anyone wanting to read a bit more about the efficacy of this method, below are some research articles. You may also like to check out www.hanen.org which is the mainstay of my work and method when it comes to Parent-Interaction Coaching. You can also look at my latest blog, entitled: Tele-therapy, does it work?
In brief, what’s so great about Parent Coaching is that it empowers you the parent to help your child in daily life! This is where speech, language and social communication develop typically, in a naturalistic way and environment. Simple steps and strategies are discussed and demonstrated every week and you are encouraged to use these strategies with your child in daily routines: getting dressed, having breakfast, on the school run, whilst out in the park or shopping or simply playing at home or having dinner or bath time. Whatever your family routine happens to be, every strategy I teach you will help create a responsive communication environment; generally, if your child is able to develop speech then they will do so in direct response to your changed interaction style.

Speech Sound Disorders, Verbal Dyspraxia, Phonology and Articulation

I love working with children of all ages on developing their speech sounds. Whether your child has a lisp, or a couple of tricky sounds they simply cannot produce quite right, or perhaps your child is really unintelligible because he/she is having lots of different sound errors, making it really hard to understand them. I typically work on getting “most bang for your buck” , meaning I address the sounds that cause the most problems and, therefore, when they are fixed your child/person’s speech becomes that much clearer fairly quickly.

Feeding and Swallowing Difficulties

Having worked for over 20 years in NHS Child Development Clinics and Special Needs Schools I trained and worked with feeding and swallowing difficulties early on in my SLT career. I later trained as a Lactation Consultant and so I am well placed helping and support all types of Infant feeding, both breast or bottle, as well as toddler weaning. I aim to ensure that your little one swallows the right kind of foods and drinks for their abilities. I am experienced in managing and supporting children with physical needs and mobility problems, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome or any other type of syndrome or presentation.

What does a speech therapy session look like?

All sessions differ slightly depending on the age of the child and the nature of the difficulties.

However, mostly our sessions look like FUN! After arrival and washing hands we tend to start off with the tricky work straight away whilst our child still has energy and the will to engage. So, for speech work we will focus on the target sounds first: this could be sitting at a table doing work sheets together, playing games using the target sound and really any type of activity that gives us around 70-100 repeats of the target pattern. For example, a child who is working towards saying a ‘K’ at the end of the word I will try and get around 100 productions of words like: pack/sack/lick/ pick/bike/lake and so on.

Then we often play a fun game where I might try for a ‘rhyming’ activity or other sound awareness type activities, for perhaps 10 minutes and within that time I aim to trial the next sound pattern we need to improve on; I will test which sound your child can do with help from me. During he last 10 minutes we might look at a book, again listening to and producing whatever sound we are working on. If I did not get 100 sounds earlier on in the session I will try and practice them now as part of the story. In total I aim to have about 40-45 minutes of activities, all aimed at the target sound we are working on.

What does a Coaching session look like?

During a Parent Coaching Session we meet online for about an hour and we discuss how the week has been for you trying out the strategies. Typically parents start off recalling what went well, what progress was made and what had been more tricky. We work through it all, and then follow on to the next strategies: I will show you examples and demonstrations of each strategy and I will get you to think about how you can use this with your child and in what situation you might use it. I will explain what we are doing and what the purpose is. You might want to write down what you are going to work on for the week. Over the course of about sessions we can cover all the major strategies that are proven to help kickstart spoken language and/or help your child to connect more with you. Through that connection spoken words most often develop.

Research Papers on the Efficacy of Parent Child Interaction Coaching
- The It Takes Two to Talk Program has been shown to be effective in changing how parents interact with their children, and that children’s communication and language skills improve as a result.
- Baumwell, L.B., Tamis-LeMonda, C.S. & Bornstein, M.H. (1997). Maternal verbal sensitivity and child language comprehension. Infant Behavior and Development, 20(2), 247-258.
- Beckwith, L. & Cohen, S.E. (1989). Maternal responsiveness with preterm infants and later competency. In M.H. Bornstein (Ed.). Maternal responsiveness: Characteristics and consequences: New directions for child development (pp. 75-87). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
- Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Is early intervention effective? (Publication No. (CDH) 74-25). Washington, DC: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Child Development.
- Girolametto, L. (1988). Improving the social-conversational skills of developmentally delayed children: An intervention study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 53, 156-167.
Sonja has been a real help for my 5 year old daughter. Due to her support, my daughter is now able to clearly and correctly enunciate ‘th’ ‘f’ and ’s’. She was also helpful in making positional changes to her seating to help her concentrate better and kept her engaged throughout all the lessons which is a feat in itself on zoom!
Helen, Mother of Catherine Age 5.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
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Autism Therapy · Neurodiversity · Printables · Speech and Language Therapy · Top tips

Let’s ditch the ‘Fix-It’ approach to autistic play and stimming
ByLondon Speech and Feeding December 8, 2025December 8, 2025
December is often presented as a time of perfect, reciprocal play. Children are supposed to be unwrapping toys, sharing, and engaging in imaginative scenarios with family. But for parents of young autistic children, this high-pressure, socially demanding period can often feel like a battleground.

If you’ve been told to interrupt your child’s stimming, push for eye contact, or force them to play ‘functionally’ with toys, it’s time to take a deep breath. Those traditional approaches are not only stressful—they often miss the point of your child’s communication.

As a neurodiversity-affirming Speech and Language Therapist, I want to encourage you this December: You are allowed to follow your child’s lead, validate his or her unique interests, and trust that his or her play and movement are profoundly meaningful.

1. Stimming: not a distraction, but a regulator 💡

Stimming is short for self-stimulatory behaviour and includes repetitive movements or sounds like hand flapping, humming, rocking, finger flicking, or repeating phrases (called echolalia).

For years, parents were incorrectly advised to block or eliminate these behaviours. The neurodiversity-affirming view tells us the exact opposite: Stimming is a vital and essential tool for your child’s self-regulation.

Think of stimming as an internal volume dial:
- Too loud/overwhelmed: Your child may stim to reduce incoming sensory input (e.g., rocking to ground himself or herself in a busy room).
- Too quiet/under-stimulated: Your child may stim to increase sensory input and focus (e.g., running back and forth to maintain alertness).
The shift: validate, don’t block

Instead of saying, ‘Stop flapping your hands’, try to understand the message behind the movement.
- Observe: When does the stimming happen? Is it before a meltdown? When your child excited? When your child is bored?
- Validate: Name the need, not just the behaviour. You might say, ‘I see your body needs to move fast right now. That helps you calm down!’
- Co-regulate: If the stim is unsafe (e.g., head-banging), help your child find a safer, alternative stim that meets the same sensory need (e.g., pushing hard against a wall, squeezing a stress ball).
By validating your child’s need to regulate, you are building trust, reducing anxiety, and teaching him or her critical self-awareness.

2. Autistic play: Meaningful, even if it’s monologue

The traditional idea of ‘good play’ often involves turn-taking, pretending, and specific toy functions (e.g., pushing a train around a track). When an autistic child spends 30 minutes lining up cars, spinning their wheels, or scripting whole scenes from a favourite movie, it can often be dismissed as non-functional or repetitive.

In neurodiversity-affirming practice, we recognise that autistic play is authentic play. These activities are crucial for learning, deep focus, and imaginative development.
- Lining up toys may be an exploration of patterns, visual organisation, and order.
- Spinning wheels may be a deep interest in cause-and-effect and visual sensory input.
- Scripting is often a way to process language, regulate emotions, and practise complex social situations in a safe, controlled way.
Make a change: Join your child’s world, don’t drag them to yours.

Stop trying to force the ‘right’ way to play. Instead, try these neuro-affirming strategies:
1. Be a co-regulator, not a director: If your child is lining up cars, sit down next to him or her. Instead of moving a car, try handing him or her another car to line up. Focus on the shared interest rather than forcing interaction.
2. Narrate (don’t question): Avoid constantly asking, ‘What are you doing?’ or ‘What does this car say?’ This puts pressure on your child to perform. Instead, narrate your observations using his or her interest: ‘I see you made a long, straight line of red cars. Look at all the wheels spinning!’
3. Validate the interest: Show genuine appreciation for your child’s focus. ‘Wow, you know so much about how magnets stick together! That’s incredible.’
3. The communication revolution: Honouring gestalt language processing

Many young autistic children communicate in ways that don’t fit the traditional model of building language word-by-word. Many use Gestalt Language Processing (GLP).

A gestalt language processor learns language in chunks or scripts (e.g., ‘what’s-in-there?’ or ‘ready-go!’). These chunks (or gestalts) are not random; they are often tied to an emotional memory or meaning. Over time, the child breaks down these big chunks into individual words then learns to recombine those words creatively.

If your child repeats movie phrases or whole sentences that seem unrelated, he or she is likely a gestalt language processor!

Affirm the script, then model something useful.
1. Affirm the script: When your child says a script, respond to the meaning or emotion behind it, not the literal words. If he or she says, ‘We’re going to need a bigger boat’, and he or she is looking at a messy toy pile, he or she may be trying to express overwhelm or a need for help. You can affirm: ‘That pile is too big! I can help you move it.’
2. Model new ‘mix and match’ scripts: To help your child move from whole scripts to single words, you can model shorter, slightly changed versions of the script, also called ‘mitigated gestalts’. If they say, ‘I want to go home now’, you might model, ‘Let’s go home, now’ or ‘I wanna go home’.
By honouring your child’s communication style, you validate his or her experience and naturally support his or her path to language development—a core part of neurodiversity-affirming SLT.

Your December gift to your little one:

This December, stop trying to make your child fit into a neurotypical box. Instead, make your home a safe space where he or she can be his or her authentic selves.

Prioritise regulation and connection over compliance.

Trust that when your child is regulated, his or her communication, learning, and engagement will flourish naturally. This is the true gift of neurodiversity-affirming practice.

Download and print my neuro-affirming quick reference guide and keep this guide handy on your fridge and/or in your child’s play area for a quick reminder to prioritise connection over conformity.

Sonja McGeachie

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Feeding · Speech and Language Therapy

A bite-sized guide to Speech and Language Therapy: feeding and swallowing
ByLondon Speech and Feeding October 7, 2024October 7, 2024
What is a Speech and Language – Feeding Therapist?

You’ve probably heard of speech therapists helping people who stutter or struggle to pronounce words. But did you know that they also work with children and adults who have problems with eating and swallowing? This specialised area is called Speech and Language Therapy: Feeding and Swallowing, or Dysphagia Therapy.

Why does a Speech Therapist help with eating and swallowing?

The mouth, tongue, and throat are all involved in both speech and swallowing. When there’s a problem with any of these parts, it can affect both your ability to talk and to eat. For example:
- Weak tongue muscles: Can make it hard to chew food and to form sounds.
- Difficulty coordinating swallowing: Can lead to choking or aspiration (when food or liquid goes into the lungs).
- Sensory issues: Can make certain textures or tastes feel unpleasant or overwhelming.
- Communication: If we are not able to express ourselves we are likely to have difficulties during daily mealtimes: how do we ask for ‘more’ of something, how do we say we have had enough or we don’t like a particular food?
How does a Speech and Language Therapist help?

Our work involves a combination of assessment and therapy. We carefully observe how your child feeds, eats and swallows, and we look into your child’s mouth to help us see what the cause of the difficulties are: could be a very highly-arched palate, it could be a very flaccid/low tone tongue, it could be poor dentition. Then, we create a personalised treatment plan to address your specific needs.

Here are some of the things we might do:
- Teach swallowing techniques: We can help your child learn strategies to improve or facilitate a safe swallow.
- Recommend dietary modifications: We may suggest changes to your child’s diet to make it easier to eat and swallow.
- Provide sensory therapy: If your child has sensory needs we can help your child become more comfortable with different textures, tastes, and smells.
- Work on oral motor skills: We can help to encourage more effective chewing, or drinking skills, or we can help your child to close his/her mouth more during chewing or drinking from a straw.
- Collaborate with other professionals: We often work closely with doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, and dietitians to provide comprehensive care.
What kinds of problems do Speech and Language Therapists help with?

We see a wide range of feeding and swallowing difficulties, including:
- Delayed feeding: Children who are slow to develop feeding skills or who have difficulty transitioning to solid foods.
- Tongue-ties: Babies can have significant difficulties with feeding when the tongue is very tightly tethered to the floor of the mouth.
- Refusal to eat: Children who refuse to eat certain foods or textures.
- Aspiration: When food or liquid goes into the lungs, which can lead to pneumonia and other serious complications.
- Chewing difficulties: Problems with chewing food, such as difficulty breaking down food or keeping food in the mouth.
- Swallowing difficulties: Problems with swallowing, such as feeling like food is stuck or choking.
- Neurological conditions: Conditions like cerebral palsy, down syndrome or other genetic syndromes can affect feeding and swallowing.
- Developmental delays: Children with developmental delays may have difficulties with feeding and swallowing.
Is there hope?

If your child is struggling with feeding or swallowing, know that there is help available. Speech and Language Therapy can make a significant difference in your and your child’s quality of life. We’re here to support you every step of the way.

Remember, you don’t have to suffer in silence. If you’re concerned about your child feeding or swallowing, please reach out. You can find a Speech and Language Therapist with a Feeding/dysphagia qualification near you via www.asltip.co.uk or contact me.

Sonja McGeachie

Early Intervention Speech and Language Therapist

Feeding and Dysphagia (Swallowing) Specialist The London Speech and Feeding Practice

The London Speech and Feeding Practice

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Autism Therapy · Speech and Language Therapy

Explore how Intensive Interaction develops Autistic children’s communication
ByLondon Speech and Feeding July 31, 2023June 21, 2023
Intensive Interaction is an approach that I might suggest for your child. Here is an overview of this approach to increase your knowledge. There are a range of approaches that overlap and having trained in them all I use them all interchangeably to tailor to each child individually. This approach is particularly good for children who work mostly to their own agenda and find it hard to engage with others.

So, what is Intensive Interaction?

According to its founder, Hewett (1980), the approach “involves mirroring a person’s actions, sounds and facial expressions.” This allows your child to recognise and form communication between themselves and another, in a fun, play-based setting. Attention and listening are the fundamentals to speech and language development. By using the Intensive Interaction approach, we can increase the time your child can attend for and with another person. We are working towards a child enjoying another person’s presence. We are hoping to make gains with playing together with a child, taking turns and achieving reciprocity. That is the platform which we need to start with to build communication, language, words and perhaps even speech.

There are many aspects that this approach supports:
- such as using facial expressions
- being in the presence of other people
- having a shared space
- attending to others
- recognising and using non-verbal behaviours (e.g., gestures)
- making sounds/noises (vocalisations) that have meaning
- and eye contact. Although, we must be careful when suggesting ‘improving’ the use of eye contact. For some individuals making eye contact can be physically painful. So be aware that we are not making our children ‘look’ we are encouraging their natural behaviour.
Who benefits from Intensive Interaction?

Children with more complex communication and learning delay can benefit from the Intensive Interaction approach. Each session can be adapted to the needs of the individual and the sessions can be designed to use the whole or part of the approach. It is especially useful for children who are finding it hard to engage in any way socially with another person. Autistic children who tend to work to their own agenda often benefit from this approach.

How is Intensive Interaction implemented?

You need to have an environment that your child is comfortable in, and to be able to come down to their level so that you can see each other. This is why I often visit children in their own homes to ensure that they are comfortable and that they can withdraw for periods of time if they need to as well.

Ensure your child knows you’re there and you are 100% present. This is very important. I would recommend that you put your phone away for some 10 minutes or so and give your undivided attention to your child for that period of time.

Waiting

Waiting is very important: we need to give your child time to process what is happening around them. After waiting for a response, you might want to start copying any gestures they use, any facial expressions they make, or perhaps imitate any sounds. You’ll want to continue with this for a few minutes to see if the communication between you and your child changes. Remember always take the cues from your child; if they communicate a message with you, respond. It might be that they are ready to finish and that they’ve shown this by walking away or signing.

Giving your child a way to respond is vital. We can use visuals to support their communication. We can create ‘yes’ and ‘no’ symbols so they can use them in a functional way.

A top tip in these sessions is to use mirrors, so that your child can see and begin to recognise their own facial expressions.

There are other programmes that overlap with Intensive Interaction such as Hanen with following your child’s lead and the Gina Davies Curiosity Programme.

Now you know a bit about Intensive Interaction, why not book a call to discuss how we can support your Autistic child’s communication using this evidence-based approach.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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Autism Therapy · Feeding · Neurodiversity · Speech and Language Therapy · Top tips

Managing mealtime sensory overload at holiday gatherings: Supporting children with allergies and feeding differences
ByLondon Speech and Feeding December 17, 2025December 16, 2025
Holiday meals are meant to be joyful and something we all look forward to. But for many children and their families, these occasions can be overwhelming and be the cause of dread and worry. The combination of new smells, unfamiliar foods, loud environments, social expectations, and allergy anxieties can quickly turn what should be a festive time into a stressful one.

For parents of children with sensory processing differences, selective eating challenges, or food allergies, holiday gatherings often require careful planning and a big dose of tolerance and compassion. The good news is that with awareness and a few gentle strategies, you can support your child to feel safe, regulated, and included during festive meals without pressure, tears, or discomfort.

Let’s explore how to make holiday mealtimes calmer, safer, and more connected this season.

🎄 Why holiday meals feel so overwhelming

Holiday gatherings usually combine several sensory triggers all at once:
- Noisy, chaotic rooms
- Strong smells from a mix of foods we don’t normally cook
- Multiple conversations happening at once
- Bright lights, Christmas décor, flickering candles
- Unfamiliar foods with unexpected textures
- Expectations to ‘try everything’ or ‘enjoy it’s sooo good!’
- New environments, seating arrangements, or routines
For children with sensory sensitivities, this can feel like a tidal wave of input. Research shows that children who are sensory-sensitive often have heightened responses to smell, taste, and texture, which may lead to avoidance or distress at mealtimes (Cermak, Curtin, & Bandini, 2010).

Add food allergies into the picture and anxiety increases even further for both children and parents. A 2020 study by DunnGalvin et al. found that children with food allergies experience significantly higher stress in shared eating environments, especially when food preparation or contamination risk is hard to control.

So, if your child becomes tearful, shuts down, or refuses to sit at the festive table, it isn’t ‘bad behaviour.’ It’s sensory overload, heightened vigilance, or discomfort communicating through their body.

🌟 Preparing your child for a calmer festive meal

Preparation is especially important for sensory-sensitive or allergy-aware children. Here’s how to set them up for success:

1. Offer predictability through previewing

Before the event, show your child pictures of:
- where you’re going
- who will be there
- the types of foods that might be served
- where they might sit
A visual schedule or social story can help reduce anxiety and give your child a sense of control.

2. Pack safe foods without apology

If your child has allergies or selective eating, bring:
- ‘Safe foods’ you know they will eat
- Backup snacks
- A separate (their own) plate, if needed
- Emergency medication
Announce clear, firm boundaries such as:

‘Ok people, these are Jamie’s safe foods — we’ll stick with these today.’ This will help relatives understand without pressure or judgement.

3. Choose seating that supports sensory regulation

If possible, seat your child:
- at the end of the table
- near a familiar adult
- away from the kitchen (strong smells)
- away from noise clusters
- give them their favourite toy or fidget whilst waiting
Let them take breaks when needed. This isn’t ‘rude,’ it’s self-regulation.

🍽️ Supporting children during the meal

1. Focus on connection, not consumption

The holidays are not the time to expand your child’s food range. Keeping mealtimes low-pressure actually supports long-term progress.

In fact, the research is clear: pressuring children to eat decreases acceptance and increases refusal (Galloway et al., 2006).

So instead of ‘Just try it!’ try:
- ‘You don’t have to eat it, you can look at it.’
- ‘You’re in charge of what goes in your mouth.’
- ‘You can keep your safe foods on your plate.’
2. Protect your child’s allergy safety

Holiday meals often include:
- cross-contamination risks
- shared utensils
- buffets
- homemade dishes without ingredient lists
Use gentle but firm scripts:
- ‘Because of Ellie’s allergies, we’ll keep her plate separate.’
- ‘We’ll serve her food ourselves to make sure she stays safe.’
Confidence in your boundary helps others respect it.

3. Manage sensory load in real time

Offer:
- headphones
- a small chew or fidget toy
- a designated ‘calm corner’
- time outside for fresh air
- a predictable signal for breaks (e.g., a hand squeeze or card)
Remember, sensory regulation is healthcare, not ‘giving in.’

4. Model calm eating

Children learn most from watching.

Slow, happy bites and relaxed facial expressions tell the nervous system: ‘This environment is safe’.

💛 What to say to well-meaning relatives

Families often have big feelings about food. You can prepare nice phrases like:
- ‘We’re focusing on helping him feel safe around food today.’
- ‘She has allergies, so we’re sticking to our plan.’
- ‘We’re avoiding pressure because it helps him eat better long term.’
- ‘We’re celebrating together, eating is not the goal today.’
Setting expectations ahead of time can reduce awkward moments later.

🎁 The bigger picture: It’s about safety, not ‘picky eating’

Children with allergies, sensory differences, or feeding challenges aren’t trying to be difficult. They are trying to stay safe, regulated, and comfortable.

Your calm presence, gentle boundaries, and preparation create the conditions for a holiday that feels peaceful, not pressured.

Sonja McGeachie

Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Owner of The London Speech and Feeding Practice.

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

📚Research References

Cermak, S. A., Curtin, C., & Bandini, L. G. (2010). Food selectivity and sensory sensitivity in children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 110(2), 238–246.

DunnGalvin, A. et al. (2020). APPEAL-2: A pan-European qualitative study to explore the burden of peanut-allergic children, teenagers and their caregivers. Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 50(11), 1238–1248.

Galloway, A. T., Fiorito, L. M., Francis, L. A., & Birch, L. L. (2006). ‘Finish your soup!’ Counterproductive effects of pressuring children to eat on intake and affect. Appetite, 46(3), 318–323.

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Lisp · Speech and Language Therapy

Correcting a lisp
ByLondon Speech and Feeding March 29, 2022June 27, 2025
This is a surprisingly common speech error and it can be corrected really well in my experience. I have helped lots of children of all ages learn how to control their tongue movements and produce clear, sharp /S/ sounds and good /SH/ sounds.

Initial consideration

There are some factors which need to be considered before we can dive into therapy proper and these are they, in a nutshell:
1. The student is not currently displaying negative oral habits such as thumb sucking or excessive sucking on clothing. This is because thumb sucking exerts pressure on the teeth and therefore can, over time, push teeth out of their natural order/position.
2. The student does not have a restricted lingual frenulum or tongue tie which can cause at times restricted movements of the tongue (pending on how tight the frenulum is attaching the tongue to the base of the oral cavity); equally a labial frenulum or lip-tie can restrict lip movement and therefore physically restrict good speech sound production.
3. The student does not have enlarged tonsils as they can sometimes push a tongue forward and also cause open mouth posture and open mouth breathing.
4. The student’s motivation to change their speech pattern is high. (this is an important factor though with younger students I can get round this with a lot of fun games and good parental involvement!)
When I do an Oral Assessment of my student these are the first factors I want to look at and consider. Often I will refer to other agencies such as Orthodontists, dentists or ENT specialists to advise and help with some of these factors before we can get going. However, there are strategies that we can work on almost straight away.

Most of my Lisp students present with an open mouth posture: that is where the student has their mouth always slightly open for breathing. Over time the tongue starts to fall forward and rests on the front teeth or the bottom lip instead of finding a comfortable resting place either at the alveolar ridge (the bumpy spot behind the upper front teeth) or, alternatively, resting at the bottom of the mouth behind the lower front teeth.

Another common problem is that the tongue is not moving independently from the jaw and so is reluctant to pull back or lift up inside the mouth as the tongue is guided in movement by the jaw.

Combine those two factors and your tongue is not pulling back, or lifting up or doing very much at all without the jaw moving as well. This makes for unclear speech sounds, especially all the sounds we make at the front with our tongue or with our lips: /B/ /P/ /L/ /N/ and of course /S/ and /SH/ are particularly hard to make. We often also struggle with the /Y/ sound so ‘LELLOW’ instead of ‘yellow’.

Do not fear!

But no fear, these problems can be treated over time for sure! We often start with lip, tongue, and jaw exercises that help to move the tongue independently from the Jaw, our student learns that the tongue is a muscle and can be trained to do amazing acrobatic things in the mouth! WOW! It can actually pull back, lift up, and come down again all on its own!

We work on breathing, holding our breath for a bit then pushing it out and then holding it again.

And when it comes to the actual /S/ sound I often try and go a NEW route bypassing the Snake-Sound route if that is what had previously been tried and failed so that we can create completely new sound patterns in our brain and think about our sounds in a completely new way.

We then work on producing the sound /S/ on its own for a bit, at the end of words, then on either side of complimentary sounds, for instance : ‘EASY” – the sound patterns here are EEE-S–EE : the /EEE/ sound is complimentary to the /S/ sound as the tongue is at the right hight for the /S/ already once you have it in place for /EEE/ -……see?! EASY!

And gradually we work towards saying the /S/ sound clearly at the front of short words, then phrases and then sentences.

The process takes some time and it depends on how ready the student is. This varies of course hugely so I can never promise the exact number of sessions we will take to get that Lisp fixed. A lot depends on home practice in between sessions, and this is of course crucial to all therapy! Every day 15-20 mins practice is a good average time to aim for and when this is done it shortens the therapy block drastically.

I always give plenty of home work so there is never a chance of it getting boring or there being “nothing to do”!

Do contact me. I really enjoy working with this type of student and get a great kick out of FIXING THAT LISP!

Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.
READ MORE Correcting a lisp