Communication skills for life.

PLEASE ONLY BOOK APPOINTMENTS IN ON FRIDAY.
We are unable to see you if you book on another day without prior agreement.

Our FREE DROP-IN CLINIC is available during NSW School Term Times on FRIDAYS 8am- 10.30am during term time.

The free Drop-In Clinic is open to anyone with any questions relating to speech, stuttering, language, literacy, social skills, swallowing and voice.

This is an opportunity for us to give you some information on how to monitor speech/ language, provide top tips on how to boost communication at home or help work out a pathway to investigate and manage the concerns.

We do not do assessments during the Drop-In Clinic times.
If an assessment or therapy is needed, we will help you book them in.

TYPICAL ENQUIRIES:

1. “My child is 3, and is still using a dummy regularly in the day, is this likely to be affecting their speech?”
(We will give you information. We understand this is a tricky one)

2. “My mother-in-law thinks my child has a stutter but I’m not sure…”
(Sometimes children going through a ‘language learning explosion’ may have disorganised speech which can mimic a stutter. We will talk with you about the different patterns of speech – we may even be able to determine whether or not it is a true stutter at the Drop-In Clinic. If it is, we will look at an assessment to look at its triggers, its severity and the types of stuttering behaviours that are being shown.)

3. “We understand our child fine, but others seem to have trouble understanding him. Is this normal at this age?”
(We can talk about typical speech sound development and provide handouts on what we are looking for and provide tips on how to monitor at home. If we can see that there is a delay or a disorder, we will guide you towards assessment/therapy. If they are approaching school age, we may also suggest an assessment of pre-literacy skills as these may be related)

4. Has my child got a lisp? /Is it normal he can’t say ‘th’ – he says “I fink”instead of I think. My daughter can’t say ‘r’, she says “The wabbit wan in the wain”, instead of “The rabbit ran in the rain”.
(This is easy enough to spot straight away. We are likely to suggest a speech sounds assessment with therapy if your child says this after it should have been developmentally matured)

5. “My child’s teacher says he’s not behaving at school and think he needs an assessment but I’m not so sure.”
(Your child may need an assessment – let’s talk this through)

6. “What does a speech pathologist do?”
(Well, let me tell you about what we do…, and what we don’t do!)

8. “My child is falling behind at school with reading, can you help? ”
(Yes! We can! We love working with children with literacy difficulties, we can comprehensively assess where the breakdown in order to clearly target therapy. We also have Power-Up sessions to turbo boost literacy therapy. We also run a Literacy Clinic to provide tutoring for reading comprehension, reading fluency, spelling, writing, and Naplan preparation)

9. “My husband had a stroke, can you help him with his speech?”
(It would be our pleasure!)

10. “My child is struggling with making friends and academically at school.”
(Let’s talk about their language skills. Let’s talk about their social awareness and communication skills overall…)