About Me
I commenced working as a Speech Pathologist in 1998 and have had the pleasure of working in a range of different workplaces during my long career (but always with kids!). This has included Education Queensland, the NHS (in the United Kingdom), Qld Health (Early intervention for the Paediatric Cardiac Service), NSW Health, as a clinical educator for Griffith University and the most recently, in my current role as the Principal Speech Pathologist for Jane Daniel Speech Pathologist. This is my niche (dream job) where I have the pleasure of working with little kids and their families in my beautiful work place adjoining my home and ‘out in the real world’ in childcare centres/ Preschools and Kindergartens.
I very gratefully call Kingscliff ‘my home’ and have lived here with my husband and 3 school age children since 2014. Between my clinical experience as a Speech Pathologist and my life experience as a Mum, my goal is to be a passionate, empathetic professional who respects and supports the journey that families are on with their little kids. I aim to utilise all aspects of my clinical/ life experience to provide fun, functional and family friendly Speech Pathology services. When I’m not working, I love enjoying nature and you will find me at the beach/ creek having fun, walking my adorable Labradoodle dog ‘Barney’, ‘trying to surf’, bush- walking, camping and most often- at the pool/ tennis and netball courts watching my own kids playing sport.
My services
Initial Appointment
At your initial Speech Pathology appointment, the goal is to understand the strengths and challenges that your child is experiencing and to establish a ‘baseline’ of these skills. This may be done through:
Case history information sharing where I ask lots of questions about your child’s presentation in the home/ childcare/ in the real world. Questions that I will ask may include information on their hearing status/ behaviour/ sleep/ eating/ feeding/ other professionals who are involved/ how they can understanding questions/ expressing themselves;
Informal assessment through ‘play’ where I am looking further into your child’s behaviours/ early talking characteristics- sounds/ words/ phrase and their ability to listen and follow my instructions;
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More formal assessment with children that are a little bit older, where they sit with me at a table and I share special picture books (assessments) that further evaluate- how they are saying their sounds/ using their words in phrases and following instructions and concepts of increasing length and complexity when compared with age matched peers;
Once a baseline of your child’s strengths and challenges have been established, I will use my professional knowledge to help ‘us’ to formulate an interventional plan together for your child. Often parents feel overwhelmed as they want to help their children but they don’t know where to start. The goal of an intervention plan is to:
1. Set very clear long and short term goals/ strategies
2. Describe how we going to achieve the goal/s.
We will also decide collaboratively the frequency of our sessions and if there are other members in your child’s team that we need to chat/ collaborate with to help get the best outcomes.
Intervention
Intervention (or therapy) is the term that I use to describe all the sessions after your child has had their initial appointment. Intervention sessions may occur weekly/ fortnightly/ monthly. You might need to come for 3 sessions, 20 sessions or the next 5 years. The needs of your child will determine the journey BUT I see parents/ caregivers as the most crucial part of this process in the early years (and beyond). Usually I ask parents to attend my sessions because my primary goal is to educate and empower you on how to achieve your child’s short term goals in the home. Sometimes having parents/ caregivers in the room is just too distracting (and impacts on your child’s ability to achieve the best intervention outcomes). If this is the case, we will invite you in at the end of the session to ‘teach you’ what we have learnt in the session.
What intervention approaches are used to get the best outcomes for my child?
I am a member of Speech Pathology Australia and have Certified Practicing Speech Pathologist status. This means that I am required to compete a Professional Self- Regulation (PSR) program across a 12 month period to ensure that I am providing evidence based Speech Pathology services- this includes First Nations Cultural Awareness training.
Because I am currently working in the early years, my evidence based practice includes
professional development that I have attended including:
Hanen Training;
PROMPT training;
Training in Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS);
The Lidcombe program of early intervention for stuttering;
Orofacial Myology- in 2022 I attended a 28 hour foundation course and Paediatric Feeding/ eating including SOS approach to feeding;
What should i expect at my speech pathology sessions?
It will always be ‘fun’ and there will always be lots of ‘purposely’ chosen toys and games to optimise your child’s outcomes which are matched to their cognitive/ social/ emotional and communicative functioning.