London Speech and Feeding Blog

Introducing the Poke-A-Dot Series of books by www.innovativekids.com and available on www.amazon.co.uk and many bookstores – I love this book and it is one of the most used books on my book shelf. Since I bought this one some years ago several others have been published including Two other Nursery rhymes: Wheel-on-the-bus and 10 little monkeys. Different topics: Ocean animals,…

Echolalia is a term used when assessing or treating children with Autism. The term refers to the repetition or echoing of utterances, either our own or others’. It can also be echoing phrases heard on television, advertising jingles or catchy repeat phrases used in tv programmes or nursery rhymes and songs. Whilst we all use echolalia occasionally and it can…

First up try and get down at eye level or Face-to-Face with your child Try to sit so that your child can see you easily, i. e. your child does not have to look up to make eye contact with you. We call that Face to Face: try and sit opposite your child. This makes it easier for you to…

A Day In The Life Of An Independent Speech And Language Therapist I often get asked how many clients/children I see per working day or what my working day/life looks like. I always reply that every day is different, which is true, but there is a sort of average working day which looks a bit like this: I usually start…

Why imitation is so important and how can speech and language therapy help children who struggle to imitate? Imitation or copying starts in early infancy. When we observe a young baby and his parent or familiar adult we can see clearly and frequently that the baby will be intently looking at adult’s face and try to copy their facial expressions,…

Target Activities and Games For Kids Target Activities and Games AMAZINGLY EASY Activities that we can do at home and in the clinic to help our children practise those targets! I bet you have wondered what amazing things are done by a therapist in the clinic that you could not possibly do at home…? Well, if so I am here…

Book Corner: You Can’t Let An Elephant On The Bus Let me introduce you to another one of my favourite books I have been using A LOT of late: Written in RHYME – extra BONUS if you ask me, as we can use it for our speech delayed children as well and/or with our children who struggle to create grammatical…

Language Development Books, Stories And Colourful Semantics Many of my students have difficulties telling stories. When looking at a book together, even books they love and have seen many times, they often struggle to understand what they are reading and cannot therefore retell the story in any sequence. A great method I often use with those students is called Colourful…

Speech Sound Disorders Treatment Approaches – A Typical Session There are various great ways to treat speech sound disorders and I use all the approaches available selectively; I decide what works with each individual child and I also vary the approach depending on the child’s frame of mind at any given time during my session. Some of the approaches are…