SPEECH THERAPY SESSIONS

We help your School-Aged Child with Language and Literacy

At Active Speech Pathology, we will set goals and a direction for therapy. In collaboration with you and your child, we will develop a Management Plan. We will match your child’s profile, including their strengths and areas of need, to the recommended evidence-based therapy techniques.

Parents and carers are encouraged to actively participate in sessions and complete follow-up activities at home. Through this, you develop a better understanding of your child’s area/s of need and learn how to use strategies and targeted activities to support communication development. That’s our work, amplified!

speech therapy for children

Better speech, better connections

Part of the reason we are passionate about what we do is that we see the positive impact of our work in the everyday lives of our clients. In short, we help your child find their voice!

By building LANGUAGE, we help your child to:

  • Easily follow directions and avoid confusion

  • Describe personal experiences (i.e., a day at school, a birthday or family event) in a way that is clear and coherent

  • Make requests, and ask and answer questions

  • Share their ideas and explain their views in interesting and varied ways

  • Process their emotions and improve relationships

  • Play and make social connections with their peers

By building LITERACY, we help your child to:

  • Fall in love with reading and read for pleasure!

  • Write school assignments to a high standard and without excess worry or stress

  • Spell words accurately

  • Understand what they’re reading so that they can ‘read to learn’ and not just ‘learn to read’

By building SPEECH, we help your child to:

  • Confidently talk to others and reduce their frustration

  • Be understood by friends and family and not have to repeat themselves

  • Minimise risk of later literacy difficulties

How it works

We are organised and like to be prepared! This means we ask all parents and carers to complete a Client Information Form prior to attending your initial consultation. This will be forwarded to you via email to complete and submit electronically. We encourage you to provide any reports (past and current) from health professionals and/or teachers involved in caring for your child.

You will receive an SMS reminder about your upcoming appointment 2 days prior.

It can also be helpful to familiarise yourself with our clinic location ahead of time. We are co-located within Body Organics in Annerley. The best options for parking are on Ekibin Rd or Lambton St.

An initial consultation at Active Speech Pathology is 60 minutes. Once you and your child are comfortable in the space, your therapist will begin by asking a series of questions to get to know your child better. These questions relate to your child’s past and current development and how your child’s difficulties are impacting their ability to participate in everyday life.

This conversation is followed by a set of assessment activities. Depending on your child’s age and stage, these can include structured observations of play, language sampling, parent questionnaires and/or standardised tests.

Within the first session or soon after, your therapist will provide preliminary feedback about the areas that are contributing to your child’s difficulties, based on the available assessment results.

We will always make time to answer your questions.

Together we consider goals, for the short and long term. These form the basis of your child’s Management Plan and will be referred to throughout therapy.

It is not always possible to complete the necessary assessment in the initial session. In these instances, your therapist will schedule a follow-up session/s with you.

Your therapist will complete a written summary or comprehensive report that outlines results from your child’s assessment. Our reports are not generic or computer generated. This will be provided to you within two weeks of all assessments having been completed. For most families, it is at this point that your child’s therapy journey begins.

With your child’s Management Plan in place, we will match their profile, including their strengths and areas of need, to the recommended evidence-based therapy techniques in ways that are fun and engaging.

Each session begins with a review of progress since the previous session. Following this feedback from you, we are able to get started with engaging your child in the planned therapeutic activities. An older child can expect a mix of table-top activities which are carefully matched to target areas. Younger children will enjoy floor-based tasks of high interest.

Parents are guided to actively participate in sessions and encouraged to complete follow-up activities at home. This means you develop a better understanding of your child’s area/s of need and learn how to use strategies and targeted activities to best support their communication development.

Management Plans are reviewed on a termly or semesterly basis to ensure that therapy is on track and focused on priority areas. Changes will be made to existing goals or new goals will be established. From time to time, we will also liaise with your child’s wider support team. This may include email, phone or face-to-face contact with their class teacher, learning support teacher or case manager, occupational therapist, psychologist, paediatrician and others involved in their care.

Your questions, answered.

Your therapist will complete a written summary or comprehensive report that outlines results from your child’s assessment. Our reports are not generic or computer generated. This will be provided to you within 2 weeks of the assessment having been completed. For most families it is at this point that your child’s therapy journey begins.

With your child’s Management Plan in place, we will match their profile, including their strengths and areas of need, to the recommended evidence-based therapy techniques in ways that are fun and engaging.

Each session begins with a review of progress since the previous session. With this feedback from you, we are able to get started with engaging your child in the therapeutic activities.

An older child can expect a mix of table-top activities which are carefully matched to target areas. Younger children will enjoy floor-based tasks of high interest.
Parents are guided to actively participate in sessions and encouraged to complete follow-up activities at home. This means you develop a better understanding of your child’s area/s of need and learn how to use strategies and targeted activities to support their communication development.

Management plans are reviewed on a termly basis to ensure that therapy is on track. Changes will be made to existing goals or new goals will be established.

The number of sessions your child needs will depend entirely on their individual circumstances. Your therapist will make a recommendation for what regularity will be most beneficial once relevant assessment has been completed. We know that therapy is most effective when it is regular and consistent. For this reason, our clients attend weekly or fortnightly sessions on the same day and time. These are generally booked in blocks ahead of time.

You and your therapist will assess your child’s needs and situation, and decide together from the outset, what will work best.

Yes. Telehealth is a session where your child is not in the same room as us but instead uses technology to be able to see, hear and share in a similar way to FaceTime or Skype. We will use different tools to make the session look and feel as close to a face-to-face appointment as possible. A few things your child will experience are:

  • Use of video and audio for us to model and observe speech and language
  • Screen share, which lets us share items on our computer with you. Your child can interact with screenshared items as if they were on our own computer.
  • Drawing and typing functions, which let your child interact with screen-shared materials

Answers to more frequently asked questions about telehealth sessions can be found here.

Put simply, no! The earlier we can assess your child and diagnose speech and/or language difficulties, the better the outcomes. The evidence is clear; waiting to take action until your child starts school at age 5 or 6 makes it harder for them to catch up to their peers. Regular therapy in their preschool years reduces the longer-term impact of speech and/or language difficulties on your child’s academic performance (including learning to read and write) and social-emotional well-being.

You can be confident that our team is equipped with the skills and training to engage even the most busy 2, 3 or 4 year old (and we even relish these opportunities!)

If you’re still unsure whether to make an appointment, get in touch! One of our friendly team will be available to discuss your concerns and answer your questions. You can also read more about speech and language milestones here and here.

And remember: speech therapy is beneficial to ALL, harmful to NONE, crucial to SOME!

All of our pricing and funding information can be found here.

Have more questions? We’ve got a page dedicated to FAQs.

Ready to get started?

We’re ready to help! Book an appointment today.