speech therapy

[vez]

Hi, we are currently waiting for our SALT referral for our 3 year old son. We have been told that waiting times are long so we are keen to go down the private route. Can anyone recommend a speech therapist in the ED area?

Thanks!

[sarah4646]

We used an amazing speech therapist when we were in your situation with our then 2 year old. He very quickly developed a pronounced stammer and we were too worried to wait for our appointment on the NHS route. She is called Tina Archer and is an NHS therapist for Lambeth I think. This was 4 years ago, so she may not be in the area anymore I suppose. She used to run the Babble and Squeak babygroup at the Mag. We actually continued seeing her when we had our Southwark NHS appointments. We found that, as she came to our house, our son was relaxed enough to speak and she could see what was going on with his speech and with the way we interacted with him, whereas when we went to Townley Road/Sunshine House we always came away feeling frustrated that the therapists frequently reported to us that he had no speech problem, based on the fact that he hadn't stammered in their presence, when he had hardly spoken....they had also not made a connection with him in such a short appointment in, what was to him, a weird situation. I may be being unfair as you can't compare the two situations, but I'm not sure any of the therapists were quite as skilled as Tina either. Our son loved her - he was quite shy and immediately took to her! She was a lovely person for us to have around too and to be able to ask for support. She always took her time to ask us lots of questions and help us. We still use some of the techniques she taught us with every day life just dealing with our children today and our son's stammer disappeared! We would whole-heartedly recommend her! I just checked on the forum and she is a member - so might be worth contacting her through this - her username is Tina.A or here is a link to her http://helpwithtalking.com/directory/member/1729

[vez]

Thanks a lot for the tip and for sharing your experience! I shall try and get in contact with Tina!