As a Speech and Language Therapist, I am a big advocate of early intervention. And I’m always encouraging you (as parents and carers) to seek intervention as early as possible. But you might be thinking, “my child just needs more time.” Have you ever wondered why early intervention is important? Read on to learn more.
Watchful waiting is not the answer
Early intervention
By intervening at a later age or stage of development, you may be leading your child to develop consequences as a result. One consequence can be challenging behaviour due to their inability to express their wants and needs. They may have difficulty in understanding and following directions. This will not only affect their ability in the classroom but also socially, maintaining friendships. Early intervention can support understanding. This can also help you support your child in breaking down activities so they can fully take part in home and school life. The Early Intervention Foundation (2021) suggest that providing early intervention can develop a young person’s strengths. You can use these activities to support their needs which creates better outcome measures. This allows young people to reach their full potential across a range of settings. It can positively impact on mental health and self-esteem.n
Positive outcomes
Also, we are protecting our young people from harmful situations by giving them a voice. And by giving them a voice, they are:
more likely to achieve and
less likely to have in negative experiences such as crime and with the justice system.
We know that social and emotional skills (such as developing self-awareness, social skills, and emotional regulation) are crucial to a young person’s development. Research has found that children with a higher level of social and emotional skills are more likely to:
achieve in education,
graduate from university,
have career prospects,
have positive work and family relationships,n
maintain good mental and physical health.
By having these positive aspects in their lives, they are less likely to engage in antisocial behaviour and related crime. It’s easy to think this feels like a long way off for your family. But by giving them the best possible start, you are promoting a positive future in all aspects of their life.
Contact me today to get started with speech, language and communication intervention.
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.
As parents, we all want our children to develop strong communication skills. This starts early, with the simple sounds and babbles of a new-born baby. Here are some practical tips to help you encourage your baby or toddler’s speech and language development through play and everyday activities.
General tips for creating a language-rich environment
Talk to your child frequently throughout the day: Even when they’re young, they’re absorbing information. Describe what you’re doing, name objects around the house, and respond to their babbling.
Read aloud regularly: Books are a great way to introduce new words and concepts. Choose books with simple language, bright pictures, and repetitive phrases.
Sing songs and nursery rhymes: These provide a fun way to practise pronunciation and rhythm.
Label objects: Put labels on toys, furniture, and everyday items to help your child associate words with objects.
Engage with your child in their play activities
Pretend play: Encourage imaginative play by pretending to be different characters or animals.
Build and create: Use blocks, Legos, or playdough to build and create different structures.
Outdoor activities: Explore the world around you. Talk about different plants, animals, and weather conditions.
Tips for effective communication
Get down to their level: When talking to your child, get down on their level to make eye contact and show that you’re listening.
Use simple language: Avoid using too many complex words or long sentences. In the early years (0–3 years) try and make things concrete, stay in the ‘here and now’ — point and gesture lots to help your child understand what you say
Be patient: Give your child time to respond and don’t rush them.
Model good language: Use clear and correct language yourself.
Speak in your native, natural Language: If English is your second language try and speak to your child in your native language: it is more natural and your will probably know better how to speak and sing to young children in your own native language.
Reading to your child
Reading to your child is a powerful way to boost their language skills and create lasting memories.
Reading to your child is more than just a bedtime ritual; it’s a powerful tool for fostering their language and literacy skills. Studies have shown that children who are read to regularly develop larger vocabularies, stronger comprehension skills, and a greater love of learning.
Why is reading so important?
Vocabulary expansion: When you read to your child, you expose them to new words and concepts. This helps them build a strong vocabulary, which is essential for effective communication and learning.
Improved comprehension: Reading aloud helps children understand the meaning of words and sentences. This improves their comprehension skills, making it easier for them to learn and understand new information.
Enhanced cognitive development: Reading stimulates a child’s brain and helps them develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and imagination.
Stronger emotional bonds: Reading together creates a special bond between you and your child. It’s a time for cuddling, bonding, and sharing stories.
The Reach Out and Read Foundation found that children who are read to regularly have significantly larger vocabularies and better language skills than those who are not.
A study published in the journal Paediatrics revealed that reading to children can have a positive impact on their academic achievement, even years later.
By making reading a regular part of your child’s life, you are investing in their future success. So, grab a book, get cozy, and enjoy the wonderful world of stories together!
Here are some great books I love using in my Speech Therapy sessions:
Books for 6 months to 2 years
Touch and Feel Books
Touchy-Feely Farm by DK Books: This book features different textures to explore, such as soft fur, rough bark, and squishy mud.
Baby Touch: Animals by DK Books: This book introduces various animals and their textures, like soft feathers, scaly skin, and furry coats.
Lift-the-Flap Books
Peek-a-Boo! Animals by DK Books: This book has flaps to lift revealing different animals hiding underneath.
Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill: A classic lift-the-flap book that encourages spatial awareness and vocabulary.
Pop-Up Books
Pop-Up Farm by DK Books: This book features fun pop-up elements that bring the farm to life.
Pop-Up Jungle by DK Books: Explore a vibrant jungle with this interactive pop-up book.
Sound Books
Sound Books: Farm by DK Books: This book features sounds that correspond to different farm animals.
Sound Books: Safari by DK Books: Listen to the sounds of various safari animals in this interactive book.
Interactive Books
That’s Not My… Series by Usborne: These interactive books feature tactile elements that encourage exploration and vocabulary.
Peek-a-Boo! I Spy by DK Books: This board book with flaps encourages visual tracking and vocabulary.
These books are designed to engage young children through their senses and encourage exploration. The repetitive nature of these books helps toddlers learn new words and concepts while having fun.
Books for 2 years ++
Classic favourites
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle: This colourful and interactive book is a classic for a reason. It introduces simple words, colours, and days of the week.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle: This repetitive story helps children learn colours and animals.
Where’s Spot? by Eric Hill: A simple hide-and-seek book that encourages vocabulary and spatial awareness.
Modern classics for children 3 years – 6 years
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler: A fun and imaginative story that introduces more complex vocabulary and rhyming.
Room on a Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler: Another rhyming story that encourages counting and vocabulary.
The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr: A playful and imaginative story that introduces various foods and social skills.
Books for children 6 years ++
The Adventures of the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A philosophical tale that introduces complex vocabulary and themes.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl: A whimsical and imaginative story that introduces a variety of characters and settings.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling: A classic fantasy series that introduces a wide range of vocabulary and concepts.
Remember: The best books for your child are the ones they enjoy. Encourage them to explore different genres and find stories that spark their imagination.
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.
I have been avoiding the use of the Empty Set approach for the longest time as I was not sure if it would work seeing that I am challenging two sounds my student struggles with at the same time. But I decided to give it a go and it works a treat!
With this approach, we use two sounds that our student is struggling with. For example, in my video this student cannot produce /sh/ and /r/. Both sounds have different rules, so I decided to contrast them with each other.
The rules of /sh/ are: no voice, air is pushed out through teeth, produced at the front.
The rules for /r/ are: use your voice, produce the sound in the middle of the mouth by shaping your tongue in a particular way.
So I chose the words ‘shoes’ and ‘ruse’ as their rules are quite different. Contrasting two sounds the student does not know has been shown to lead to greater change in the child’s articulation. And I can certainly vouch for this as my student is making the best progress with this approach.
Phonology Therapy – what is it, why and how?
Phonology is the study of the sound system of a language. It’s distinct from articulation therapy which focuses on the physical production of sounds.
Phonology therapy focuses on rules. For example, sounds that are produced at the front of the mouth, in contrast to sounds that are produced at the back of the mouth, or sounds that are produced with a long air stream: /s/ or /f/ versus short sounds like /p/ or /t/; sounds are produced with voice or without voice.
Many children, and sometimes adults, are unaware of some of the speech rules and confuse and replace individual sounds. They might say TAT instead of CAT or SIP instead of SHIP.
A quick overview of phonology approaches I use:
Minimal Pairs:
This approach is good for single sound substitutions. We offer word pairs that differ by only one sound, like ‘ship’ and ‘sip.’ One of our first goal in therapy is to highlight the difference between the target sound (e.g., /sh/) and the sound the child uses (e.g., /s/). This helps discriminate and eventually produce the correct sound.
Multiple Oppositions:
A child might replace lots of sounds with a single sound like a /d/. So instead of ‘four’, ‘chore’ and ‘store’ our child says ‘door’, making speech very unintelligible.
The approach is typically geared towards shaking up the phonological system. Our goal is to choose two to four targets that are different from each other, and different from the substituted sound. If our child’s favourite sound is /d/ they can use their voice and make a short sound by stopping their airflow. So I will choose a different target sound to change up the speech system. For example I might choose an /f/, a /m/ and a /k/ sound. So I would contrast: ‘door’ with ‘four’, ‘more’ and ‘core’.
Maximal Oppositions:
In the Maximal Oppositions approach the treatment sets consists of words that are minimally contrasted and that have maximal or near maximal feature differences between each word pair. One word in a pair represents a sound the child ‘knows’ (can say at word level) and the other represents a sound the child does not know (cannot say).
For example, a child may ‘know’ /m/ and be able to say words like ‘man’, ‘mat’ and ‘mine’. However, the same child may be unable to say /f/ as in ‘fan’, ‘fat’ and ‘fine’. The consonants /f/ and /m/ are maximally opposed as follows.
I am always delighted to work on speech sound disorders, I love the challenge and the successes we can celebrate together. Get in touch with 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.
It feels like the Christmas festivities start earlier and earlier every year. This makes it harder for your child with communication difficulties to process what is happening. Whilst you can’t do anything about the events that happen around your child, you can start to put into practice strategies which may support them and allow them to regulate their emotions.
Six ways to prepare your child for the Christmas festivities
Explore six ideas here:
1. Print off or buy a blank calendar to use at home
You can start to write in activities out of the usual routine and add a picture to allow your child to understand what it’s about. You can also use it as a countdown to Christmas Day to try to prevent ‘how long’ questions.
2. Make use of visual timetables
These are useful in everyday settings and activities but also when change occurs.
3. Be aware of any non-uniform days
Days like ‘Christmas Jumper Day’ can make your child feel uncomfortable and may affect their behaviour. By giving yourself time, you can have conversations with your child’s teacher to find a more suitable alternative. For example, they can wear a Christmas t-shirt that they find more comfortable.
4. Think about what will benefit your child
Do they like being surrounded by people or do they prefer a quiet space on a 1:1 basis? Christmas activities often involve lots of group work in school (e.g., rehearsing for carol concerts or plays). They might prefer to pre-record their part in the Christmas play or create pieces of art which can be used. At home, they may prefer one guest visiting at a time, rather than all at once.
5. Explore how your child is feeling
It’s important to find out how your young person is feeling and how these impact on the activities of that day. It might be that your child doesn’t like surprises and the intensity of opening gifts is too much for them. They may prefer gifts to be left unwrapped and given throughout the day, rather than all at once.
6. Consider sensory needs
Ensure your young person has everything they need to meet their sensory needs. This can be e.g. noise cancelling headphones, fidget toys, or comforting items. These will particularly be helpful with routines changing, often with little notice. If at home, you may wish to not put lights on the Christmas tree if visual stimuli become too much.
Remember clear communication between home, school and other family members is vital during this time. By having clear communication and expectations, your young person will feel more secure. And you can have a Christmas that is right for you and your family.
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.
We use powerful motor learning principles to help children with CAS (Childhood Apraxia of Speech) learn how to produce better, clearer speech sounds in words, phrases and sentences.
What are these principles?
Principle 1: MASSED PRACTICE
This is where you see a child for lots of sessions in a shorter period of time, so for instance six weeks of three times weekly for 30 minutes.
This leads to motor performance or automaticity.
Principle 2. DISTRIBUTED PRACTICE
This is what I use, as most of my clients are not able to come and see me that often on a weekly basis. It is hard to travel in London and life is hectic. So I favour one session a week over say a term or two terms and a session is usually 45 minutes long.
This leads to improved Motor Learning and good generalisation.
During either Massed or Distributed Practice, we choose between 4 variables:
Principle 3: Constant vs Variable
Principle 4: Blocked vs Random
To explain:
Constant Practice is where we repeat the practice of a small handful of target words.
We practise the same target sound in the same word position, e.g. at the beginning of a word: ‘bee’, ‘bye’, ‘bow’, ‘baa’ or ‘key’, ‘car’, ‘cow’, ‘Kaye’ etc.
We keep the rate, pitch and intonation constant.
Variable Practice is where we vary the rate, volume, pitch and intonation of the targets
We use a larger number of sounds, and words that are motivating to say for the child.
For example, if a child loves Peppa Pig then I might choose the words: ‘Peppa’, ‘Daddy Pig’, ‘George’, ‘Mummy Pig’ and a couple of other favourite characters. My child might struggle with a number of sound sequences there but we will target them one by one.
We can also select simpler words like ‘cape’ and ‘cake’ or ‘tick’ and ‘tip’.
Blocked Practice is where we practise one target word for say five minutes then we move to another target word for the next five minutes and then we revert back to the first target word again and so on, so blocks of practice.
RandomPractice means we practise several target words at the same time.
How do I decide on what to use?
Good question!
I always opt for distributed practice (weekly for up to 45 minutes).
Within that, I tend to find it most successful to start out with constant practice when a child is finding a certain sound sequence really hard and we need to just ‘nail it’. Bearing in mind I only pick sounds that my student can actually make in isolation, so we are not working on articulation! (where we focus on trying to elicit single sounds correctly – or even at all sometimes) Here in CAS work, we are working with sounds the student can make but is having trouble to add together, into a sequence that is needed to make a word sound right.
As soon as I feel we have some traction I will go to variable practice, i.e. I pick words that are either funny or interesting for the child and it can be a slightly larger number.
I tend to use blocked practice in the beginning or when working on vowels. That’s because it is more important we get our vowels right. They carry a word and are very important for overall speech intelligibility. Once we are on a roll, I tend to go more for random practice.
Example
Here in the video clip, we try and work the /e/ vowel in short words likes ‘bell’, ’fell’, ‘dell’, ‘sell’, ‘smell’ and I am using an AAC device to give a child’s voice as auditory feedback as well as using the PROMPT approach to help my student shape his vowels.
So this is:
Distributed (1 x week for 45 minutes)
Constant – we are practising the /e/ vowel in the same position in six different words
Blocked – we did this: several repetitions of each word and after the sixth we moved to another sound, and then later we came back to this.
Please feel free to contact me if your child has speech sound difficulties. It is my passion. I love supporting children with apraxia.
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.
During the pandemic I wrote a blog on what my working day looked like. Now a good year has passed since coming back to some sort of normality and I thought I would update this ‘day in the life of an SLT’ as my working life has changed of course to reflect the ‘new normal’.
I have become truly busy, perhaps busier than I have ever been to be honest. It’s probably mostly due to the fact that I do most of the aspects of my work myself — though I want to mention two invaluable people here without whom I could not function as well as I do: the excellent Nathalie Mahieu (nathalie@nmediting.nemediting.co.uk) helps me with my SEO, Insta posts and blog uploading and the wonderful Sue Bainbridge (sueybee@btinternet.btinternet.com) makes sure that my accounts don’t get into trouble with His Majesty’s tax office.
Attached to our role as Speech and Language Therapists is an arguably enormous amount of administration/paperwork and preparation required for each and every client. This needs to be factored in when deciding how many families I can realistically see each working day. For me it works out as typically 3–5 clients a day, Monday to Friday.
So how does my day typically look? Each day varies a lot depending on what type of client I have, but on average it looks a bit like this:
First thing in the morning — after having a coffee and a quick check-in with my besties on WhatsApp — I do my Buddhist chanting for about an hour. My Buddhist prayers are the base of all I do and get me connected to my higher purpose and how to create value with each activity and each person I see that day. It sets me up for the day, I keep in mind who is going to come and see me and how I can best help them.
Next up, I do the daily ‘spring-clean’ of my therapy room (on all fours! no joke ???? those kids see every speck!), vacuum the floors, wipe down the toys with flash-wipes and tidy up all my boxes, making sure that the battery toys are working, and everything else is in place. On to the guest toilet, the hallway needs to be rid of all the men’s shoes and trainers and coats… It’s endless what needs tidying when you are living with three men… This takes about 45 minutes.
An articulation activity – packaging practice into a little game
Then I prep for all my clients that day. I have now got so much quicker about selecting therapy materials. For one thing I have purchased so many toys and materials over the past five years that I can literally now open a shop and need to consider building an extension! ???? The upside is that it is now very easy for me to select a good handful of toys or games for any one child, even at a minute’s notice. Though, on average, I spend about 30 minutes per child preparing activities.
Hurrah, it’s 11 am and my first client of the day arrives and the fun begins.
When they leave around an hour later, the cleaning and wiping down starts again, this time less extensively. I write up my notes and send homework whilst enjoying a cuppa.
The next client comes at 12.30 pm and once they have left, floor cleaned, toys wiped, notes written it is time for a quick lunch. No more than half an hour usually.
Afternoon clients tend to be one more little one (nursery age) at 2.15 pm and thereafter I see mostly older school children for a variety of reasons (mainly speech production but also some language-based activities). I tend to say farewell to my last client of the day around 6 pm. I spend another hour, sometimes more, on writing up notes, answering new enquiries, blogging and phone calls to keep my service fresh, inspirational and exciting.
And then dinner and the rest of the day rushes by. I tend to finish my day with some more Buddhist chanting, not a lot, perhaps 10–20 minutes to reflect on what has gone well and what could have been better — re-determine to improve or make better as needed.
Tele therapy activity using online materials plus a coreboard
In terms of where I provide a service, I still do a good mix of online clients (tele-therapy) and in-person clients in my clinic, which I love. Occasionally, I visit children in their nursery or at home but this service is now only available for long-standing clients.
Each client is hand-picked to make sure that we are a good fit: no one client gets the same treatment as another; each client is unique, we get to know one another well over the time we work together and they are always highly valued. That takes time and, in reality, each client gets about two hours of my time. That is the actual session plus all the preparation and aftercare, i.e., bespoke hand holding, tweaks, problem solving and reassurance in between sessions.
I absolutely love this way of working and would not ever want to do anything else. Nearly three decades of working both in the NHS and in private practice, countless courses (continual professional development) have enabled me to flourish as a therapist and I know that I offer something special and very valuable to my clients.
My unique way of working affords all my lovely clients the help they need to support their children to make progress; and it gives me the right balance of job satisfaction and work life balance for now. My lovely reviews and testimonials tell me that my clients appreciate my service and this at the end of the day is the most important.
If you are interested in exploring Buddhism/buddhist chanting then check out this link (https://sgi-uk.org/), and feel free to contact me about that specifically, regardless of whether you want speech therapy. I am always happy to chat about Buddhism, it has been so enriching for the last 43 years of my life.
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.
Have you ever wondered why children may pronounce a word correctly one minute and in the next breath they struggle to say the same word? It’s equally as frustrating for you as it is for your child. The biggest question of all is WHY? Why does this happen and what causes it? Whilst there are many explanations. When it persists, it might be a condition called verbal dyspraxia.
What is verbal dyspraxia
Verbal dyspraxia is a neurological motor speech disorder that affects the coordination and planning of muscle movements that are needed for speech production. A child may have difficulty making the precise movements needed for speech, which may result in inconsistent and unintelligible speech. Children may also have trouble sequencing sounds and syllables, producing speech sounds accurately, and coordinating the movements of their articulators (e.g., lips, tongue, teeth, jaw). This can lead to a range of speech errors (including sound distortions, substitutions, omissions, and difficulty with rhythm and prosody).
We know that these speech errors, and not being able to get a message across, can be frustrating for children with speech difficulties. Can you imagine talking and limited people understanding you? It’s so tough on children and the people trying to communicate with them.
Creating a person-centred therapy plan is vital. This allows your child to stay motivated, as intervention is likely to be long term. This planning may include favourite words to use during their hobby or favourite activity, or person-centred goals such as ‘giving Alexa an instruction’.
Children with verbal dyspraxia can have several different ways of producing words, which often makes it trickier for them as there’s no consistent pattern to work with. So, we’ve put together some top tips to support their communication and make their (and your) lives a little easier in the process.
Ten ways to make communication easier for your child with verbal dyspraxia
Have a list of frequently used words and practise this set. Little and often is best!
Use cued articulation to support speech production (ask your Speech and Language Therapist for the gestures)
Give time and use active listening. This means showing interest and trying not to think about what is on your never ending ‘to do’ list
Reduce frustration in any way that you can. This might mean allowing your child to demonstrate using gestures rather than speech. You might also give top tips for other adults or children who communicate with your child when out and about
Talk about the structure of words with your child (i.e., there are two beats/syllables in this word)
Show the written form of the word to go alongside their production
Split down tasks, so that your child only has to respond to one question at a time, reducing their motor capacity
Recognise when your child is working well and when they may need support of an Alternative and Augmentative Communication device
Allow all environments to have the same training and equipment (i.e., at school, home, out and about)
Have regular periods in the day where your child can practise their specific words in different environments. This can be effective for children with verbal dyspraxia
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.