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Where Our Passion Lies

We are passionate about developing children's communication skills across the following areas of development:

Speech

When we refer to ‘Speech’, we work on how a child makes the sounds in words and their ability to be understood.

Language

When we refer to a child’s ‘Language’, we mean their ability to ‘understand’ and ‘use’ language.
A young girl in a red dress pondering

Literacy

When we refer to 'Literacy', we mean phonological awareness, spelling, reading and written composition.

Fluency

When we refer to 'Fluency', we mean the smoothness of their talking without repetitions or filler words.

Speech and language

‘Speech’ and ‘language’ are two different things.
‘Speech’ errors are usually easy to hear for parents and teachers.
When we refer to a child’s ‘language’, we mean their ability to ‘understand’ and ‘use’ language.
Children with language difficulties may present with any or all of the following:
Poor comprehension
Difficulty following instructions
Difficulty explaining their ideas
Frustration that others can’t understand them
Difficulty expressing themselves verbally or in writing
Learning difficulties
Poor memory
If you have concerns about your child’s speech or language, contact us info@speakandwrite.com.au

Quick reference – Problems to look out for

Outlined below in the table are some common comments parents and teachers make in regards to the difficulties that their children are experiencing.

Age range: 2-8 years
Age range: 8-18 years
Speech
Problems with speech sounds
Problems saying multisyllabic words
Receptive Language
Can’t follow instructions
Can’t work unsupervised
Doesn’t understand the main idea
Drifts off in class, disruptive
Doesn’t listen in class or at home
Doesn’t have many friends
Doesn’t answer the question
Doesn’t know where to start with homework, assignments, exams
Doesn’t understand the main idea or inferred message
Attention difficulties
Doesn’t listen in class or at home
Can’t follow story lines in movies
Doesn’t have many friends – difficulty with humour
Expressive Language
Can’t explain themself
Mixes the order of words in a sentence
Can’t tell a story logically
Uses the wrong words or non specific “like” and “stuff”
Sentence structure is simplistic or poorly organised
Can’t explain ideas logically
Literacy
Problems learning letters and sounds
Problems with sight words
Can’t remember what was read
Spelling problems
Problems pronouncing unfamiliar words
Slow reading results in fatigue & poor comprehension
Reading ok, comprehension poor - can’t remember content
Problems spelling homophones (there, their)
Sentence structure is simplistic or poorly organised
Can’t organise writing at paragraph or text level