The image shows a young boy typing on a laptop

Why teletherapy is great

ByLondon Speech and Feeding

Did you know that you don’t have to see a therapist with your child present to have improved communication? For younger children, evidence suggests that regular tailored interaction with parents/carers is as good as seeing a Speech and Language Therapist, with their advice followed. Often your child will respond better because they are in familiar surroundings with their favourite toys present. By learning the techniques I teach you in our weekly virtual zoom sessions, you can support your child’s language and communication every single day. This can be as good and sometimes even better than coming into clinic once a week. You’re embedding and generalising what your child is learning into everyday situations. This is important for your child’s communication development.

Speech Therpaist in London

It takes two to talk – the Hanen approach

The Hanen approach is about improving your child’s communication by tweaking your own communication style as parents and carers. It looks at your strengths and weaknesses in your communication with your child. You film a session playing with your child, and with a trained Hanen Speech and Language Therapist you review the video identifying strengths and weaknesses in your communication on a regular basis for a set period. For example, you may give your child plenty of time to answer questions, but you might identify from the video that you ask too many questions.

The Hanen approach works well online because:

  • Parents and carers can concentrate on the information they are given without interruption from their child
  • It is a process; you’re not told what’s right and wrong. It’s a process of discussion, reflection, and understanding by analysing the video footage
  • This method can be applied to daily activities, so together we can think about how it can be individualised specifically for your family situation
  • You can carry out the techniques in your own time when your child is well, calm, and willing to engage.

Online therapy is also ideal for older children (aged 7+) who have difficulties with speech, word-finding, sequencing, or executive functioning (planning and processing information) skills. You can see and hear the therapist and gain knowledge from their valuable expertise whilst saving you time, money, and energy resources. In addition, children tend to love technology, so the online resources are motivating and capture their attention.

Remove the barriers and start your online therapy journey today.

Contact me to learn more.

Sonja is a highly knowledgeable and experienced speech and language therapist. Don’t hesitate to contact her, especially if you are concerned that remote/zoom sessions aren’t as effective as ‘real life’. We have found quite the opposite! She has worked with us on Hanen and now troubleshoots when problems come up. This is such a wonderful way of working. She acts as your indispensable guide (a speech and language fairy godmother, if you like) but make no mistake, it’s your application of what she teaches you, on a day-to-day basis that results in the most change.

P. Goeldner


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.

Joint Attention For Children With Autism
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Joint Attention For Children With Autism

ByLondon Speech and Feeding
Kids Speech Therapist London

Why is joint engagement important for communication development?

It has been well-documented that the development of joint attention is impaired in children who have social communication difficulties or autism. It is, in fact, this impairment which distinguishes children with ASD from children who have other developmental delays.

A lack of joint attention in very young children is an early sign of autism as it is a signal that there is a disruption in the motivation to connect socially with others. Since this is a crucial element, I thought I would outline what we mean by Joint Attention as supported by the research undertaken at Hanen.org.

In typically developing children, the ability to shift attention between a person and an object for the purposes of connecting socially or for requesting develops around the same time. However, for children with ASD, these components emerge one at a time and in a linear fashion. Children with ASD usually start with requesting something and later they may learn to share attention for social sharing. (see pattern below as a general guide).

As with typical development, there is variation in the order that these skills emerge but the following patterns of development is commonly seen:

  • Reaching, taking adult’s arm/hand or pointing to ask for something — but without looking at the adult
  • Gradually alternating looking between person and object of desire
  • Then learning to follow the point of another — which is responding to joint attention initiated by another
  • Directing attention to share interests — without looking at the adult: pointing to a truck on the road/ helicopter circling above
  • Then directing attention to share interest by alternating gaze shift between person and object — here the child is now initiating joint attention.

What is important to note is that in order to fulfil the criteria for true joint attention, the purpose of directing the attention of another person must be social in nature. In other words, it must not be exclusively to obtain a desirable object or event/action. True Joint Attention is seen verbally or non-verbally; we want to share a thought with another person and direct them to something we are interested or excited or spooked by.

For example: we can see an amazing firework display in the distance and we want to quickly direct our friend’s attention to this. In order to do this we might be tugging their sleeve/arm whilst pointing to the display in the distance, and perhaps we might add “wow look over there!” We are doing so simply to share an interest without obtaining anything, we are just being social with each other. So True Joint Attention is not just looking at what we want to have, then look at the person who can get this for us and then point to the item. We can say that this is the precursor to true joint attention, which is purely social in nature.

Because true joint attention is an essential precursor to typical language development, the absence of joint attention in children with ASD contributes to difficulties with language learning. Beuker, K., Rommelse, N., Donders, R. & Buitelaar, J. (2013).

The Hanen programme for Parent Child Interaction teaches parents of children with Social Communication Difficulties step by step how to enable their children to learn to pay attention to an object and the parent at the same time.

We learn how to enable a child to:

  • engage take turns
  • shift eye gaze between toy and adult
  • copy adult’s actions, gestures and then words
  • play with toys in different, new ways
  • interact and for longer periods of time
  • have fun whilst playing

If you would like to know more about the Hanen programme please get in touch. I look forward to exploring the topic with you and help guide you forward if this is something your child is struggling with.

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.