Blog
NDIS Meal Management Clinic
SPT’s new dysphagia clinic will focus on NDIS meal management assessment and plans for adults.
Our Submission to the Tasmanian Literacy Advisory Panel
The Government of Tasmania has asked the community to give their views about literacy and what is to be done to improve it. We are grateful for the opportunity to set out our views in the link right here:
Towards #100PercentLiteracy: 9% to 82% in a year
I work a day per week in a school in a low ICSEA (Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage) area in Tasmania. The principal and staff are amazing. And so were the principal and staff before the current lot. They care.They trust each other and they work as a...
Social Skills… You’re Welcome.
At the moment our team of fabulous speechies are screening and assessing the speech and language of nearly 700 early years Tasmanian school children. These little people, forming and growing, never fail to delight. Every one of them is magnificent. The team are...
Changes to our Hobart clinic therapy rooms
With our team of therapists growing, we find the need to make some changes to our Hobart clinic. Speech therapist Caroline Ross has prepared this social story ‘Different Rooms at SPT’ to help clients who might find it challenging to adjust to sessions in a new room.
I Wonder… Do Other Mothers Worry As Much?
School is going back and it triggered one of the lovely mums I (Rosie) work with to send me the most incredible, honest, vulnerable email. It's worthy of a wider read because she so beautifully captures the heart of many mothers I know whose children have differences...
An exciting year ahead
SPT Business Manager Sharon Breen is excited about our team expanding and the potential to increase our capacity to serve more Tasmanians.
A Unicorn Job
“You’ve got a unicorn job(!) - the kind of job everyone wants to have... except they don’t really exist!” So said a friend of our wonderful team member Renee, about Renee's magical, marvelous work. After seven years raising her daughter, Renee was thinking about...
Logopède… obviously.
Earlier this week I was in a zoom meeting with a clever, outgoing, French scientist. The conversation trip-trapped around to this topic of shared interest, then that… and somewhere in the midst he told me that he has dyslexia. Then completely matter-of-factly, he...
Intentional Accidental Counsellors
Here's a few of our great gang after finishing a Lifeline 'Accidental Counsellor' training together. Allan, in the blue on the right, was in the 'gang' for the day as our fabulous facilitator. But he's well and truly in our gang for life as someone who reverberates...
The Kids: A Song Of Their Heroes
The kids are making so much rapid progress. They’re progressing faster than I’ve ever seen.
Following the Evidence
There are very few exceptions to the statement ‘everyone can learn to read and write’. Learning to read is one of the most studied human skills. We certainly now know enough about it to build a nation, which in practical terms is fully literate. This research has...
Fantastic Job Opportunities for Justice-Minded Speech Pathologists
Tasmanian. The quiet pursuit of the extraordinary.Together with our partner Connect42, Speech Pathology Tasmania is in quiet pursuit of the extraordinary. Will you join us? We are the service partner delivering the speech pathology components of a new justice...
Yoshimoto Orton-Gillingham Literacy & Dyslexia Training in Tasmania 2021
Speech Pathology Tasmania is thrilled to partner with Dyslexia Orton-Gillingham Institute Australia to make this training available to educators and parents in Tasmania.
Learning From Our Clients
There is no one that teaches us more about the work we do than our clients themselves. This is true for any of the helping professions and is certainly true for speech pathologists. It is through our interactions and applying theory, practically, to the presenting...
Just Time and Juggling in Times of Covid
Just Time and Juggling in Times of Covid (Or, you couldn’t write a manual to solve this!) We all maintain good health and hygiene practices, right? 1.5m apart, washing hands with soap, sneezing into elbow, staying at home if unwell, etc. It’s this ‘staying home if...
Change Flooding Up
Above image: left to right: Linda McKillop, speech pathologist & Orton-Gillingham master trainer; Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AC, Governor of Tasmania; Rosie Martin, speech pathologist. “We’ve been talking about improving the literacy rates...
My Friend Linda
I first met my dear friend Linda McKillop more than 30 years ago. I met her in the waiting room at the then Clarence Community Health Centre. I was a 24 year old ‘speechie’ working there two days each week; she was a 22 year old speechie working for the Education...
Big Girl Pants: Coming to terms with my son’s need for speech therapy
In the early stages of my son’s speech pathology sessions, I had doubts. Not because of the service or care he received, but because of my own, deep rooted and complex feelings about how I was doing as a parent. I’ll cancel. He doesn’t need to go. There’s another kid...
“I Don’t Know”
We understand that saying “I don’t know” is the beginning of something good. We teach our clients to say “I don’t know”. It matters to teach this overtly to children.