Questions
The things people ask first
Parents and carers
Where is the clinic?
11 Cambridge Park, Wanstead, London E11 2PU. It is under a five-minute walk from Wanstead station.
I chose it on purpose. There are parks on the doorstep, which matters when a child needs to move before a session or calm down after one.
Do I need a referral from my GP?
No. Book directly, or email me. Many families see me while they are also waiting on an NHS list. You can do both.
Does the assessment include a written report?
No. The £270 buys the assessment: the session itself, the analysis afterwards, and a proper conversation with you about what I found and what I would do next.
A written report is £95 on top. I have kept it separate rather than folding it into one bigger number, because not every family needs one. If you want a record for yourself, for a school, for a nursery, or for an EHC needs assessment, you need the report.
What happens first?
A free fifteen-minute call. You tell me what you have noticed, I ask a few questions, and between us we work out whether a first session is the right next step. Sometimes it is not, and I will say so.
How long will my child need support?
I cannot tell you before I have met them, and I would be suspicious of anyone who could. Some children need a handful of sessions. Others need help across a year or more.
My child is bilingual. Is that the reason?
No. Growing up with more than one language does not cause speech and language difficulties. It is a stubborn myth, and a harmful one, and it has cost a lot of children a lot of time. If something is not right, the languages are not the reason, and nobody should be telling you to drop one at home.
Do you offer sessions online?
Not for therapy. I would rather be straight with you than sell you something I do not believe in.
I do work online for annual review meetings, for school training, and for coaching parents.
My child is autistic. What are you going to change about them?
Nothing. I am not here to make your child less autistic, quieter, stiller, or easier for other people. That is not therapy.
What I can do is help your child be understood, help them understand other people, give them more ways of getting a message across, and help the adults around them meet them halfway.
Schools, nurseries and local authorities
Can you write a report for an EHC needs assessment or an annual review?
Yes. Needs described so they sit properly in Section B. Provision specified and quantified for Section F — hours, frequency, group size, and who delivers it. Outcomes written so that in a year's time anyone can tell whether they were met.
Isn't speech and language therapy health provision rather than educational provision?
Almost never. The long-standing position is that teaching a child to speak is as much education as teaching them to write, and the SEND Code of Practice requires the decision to be taken child by child rather than by blanket policy. For the children I see, it belongs in Section F.
Do you accept SEND Tribunal instructions?
Yes, within my areas of professional expertise. I am Bond Solon trained in expert witness report writing. A fixed fee of £1,650 for a standard instruction; what it covers is set out on the fees page. Work begins once the agreed payment has been received.
Will your advice change depending on who is paying?
No. A parent, a school and a local authority instructing me about the same child would get the same recommendations. My HCPC registration requires it, and independent advice that bends towards whoever commissioned it is not worth commissioning.
How do we book you, and how do we pay?
See the Fees page. Setting visits, meetings and training are priced by the hour or by the session, so they are arranged by email first — the amount depends on the hours and on travel.
Payment is due in advance of the booked session. If I need to travel to you, get in touch before booking: a travel fee may be added.
Plain English
Words you will hear, and what they mean
You will meet these in reports, at nursery, and at midnight on the internet. Here they are, without the fog.
- Speech and language therapist
- Someone trained to help with talking, with understanding, and with every other way people make themselves understood. Often shortened to SLT.
- SLCN
- Speech, language and communication needs. An umbrella term, not a diagnosis.
- Assessment
- Our first proper session. Your child plays, I watch and listen, and afterwards I talk you through what I found. A written report of it is a separate thing, and a separate fee.
- Neurodivergent
- A person whose brain works differently from most people's — autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, and more. A group of people is neurodiverse. One person is neurodivergent.
- AAC
- Any way of communicating that is not speech: signing, symbols, a picture book, an app on a tablet. Short for augmentative and alternative communication.
- Echolalia
- Repeating words, phrases or whole scripts. It is communication, and it usually means something. It is worth working out what.
- Gestalt language processing
- Learning language in whole chunks first — a phrase, a film line, a song — and only later breaking those chunks into single words. It is one of the ways children get to language. It is not a wrong turn.
- Stimming
- Rocking, flapping, spinning, humming. It helps with focus, and with feeling calm. It is not something to be stopped.
- SENCO
- The person at your child's school in charge of support for children with additional needs.
- EHC plan
- A legal document describing what a child needs, and what the council must provide. Short for education, health and care plan.
- Specified and quantified
- The phrase that makes an EHC plan mean something. Not "regular speech therapy", but how many sessions, how long, how often, and who delivers them.
Wondering about your child's talking?
Children arrive at language on wildly different timetables. There is no track to be on. This will not tell you what is going on — but it might tell you whether a conversation is worth having.
This is not a test, and a child cannot fail it. It cannot see or hear your child. It is a prompt for a conversation, and nothing more.
Ticking fewer boxes does not mean something is wrong. Children really do differ, and this page knows nothing about yours. It cannot diagnose anything. If anything here worries you, speak to me, to your GP, or to your health visitor.
And this beats everything above it: if your instinct says something is up, trust it, and email me anyway.