SmallTalk Speech & Language Therapy

26/03/2026

I hadn't realised as I couldn't attend awards or the conference. I'm delighted to get the email tellling me!

26/03/2026

I'm doing the final edits of the SM book for teens. I need to get across that is not just an inability to talk. there are chapters to discuss how we can reduce the obstacles. Coming this spring!

26/03/2026

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting an amazing young man.

He has a PDA profile.

In the middle of the assessment, he questioned what I was saying and asked me to justify myself.

And honestly? I had no problem with that at all. I respected him even more.

But it really made me reflect on how easily this could be misunderstood. How some professionals might feel challenged, irritated, or even take it as a questioning of their competence or authority.

When in reality, it’s none of those things.

For children and young people with a PDA profile, questioning is not defiance; it’s regulation. It’s about needing to understand, to feel safe, and to reduce the sense of threat that can come with demands.

If we misinterpret that, we risk damaging trust.

If we understand it, we open the door to connection.

We really need to hold this in mind when we’re working with these young people.

I'm looking forward to writing his report!

25/03/2026

I was in the top sets at school, but learning felt incredibly hard.
From the outside, I was doing well.
Inside, I had so much going on, but it wasn’t noticed.
So I carried a quiet shame about how I felt.
I never felt good enough.
Even when I tried, I was told I could do better.
What wasn’t seen was the constant pressure and anxiety running through my body every single day. By the time I got into the classroom, I was already close to capacity.
Because it started long before school began.
Remembering what day it was.
Packing the right things.
Getting there on time.
Things that seem small, but for me, they were overwhelming.
But no one noticed. Because this is just what you’re expected to do.
And then there was school itself.
The smell.
The noise.
The busyness.
Desks and chairs touched by hundreds of others.
To my overloaded brain, it was chaos.
At the same time, it felt like a place where you could be caught out or humiliated at any moment.
I never understood what it took to avoid those words, the ones that cut deep and stayed with me.
So I buried how I felt.
Because that felt like survival.
But this had very little to do with learning.
Because I loved learning.
Books. Art. Drawing. History.
Thinking. Exploring. Understanding.
But school made it rigid.
Flattened it.
Forced it into a formula.
The one place that felt safe was the art room.
It had objects, textures, books, dried flowers, it even smelt like home.
I went there whenever I could.
History came close too, discussion, debate, different viewpoints.
But Maths was the opposite.
A sterile room, no relevance, no anchor. Concepts that felt disconnected from anything real. I didn’t struggle because I couldn’t understand, I struggled because I couldn’t connect it to anything meaningful.
Even English, which I loved, became hard.
A teacher repeating the same material year after year. A disengaged class. A monotone delivery.
It made something rich feel impossible to hold onto.
And somewhere along the way, I made a decision, without fully realising it:
If this is what learning is, I don’t want it.
I didn’t believe my intelligence should be measured by my ability to endure an environment that made me feel anxious, overwhelmed, and disconnected.
So I stopped.
Not learning, but that version of learning.
After 16, I tried different paths. But as soon as structure, assessment, and pressure appeared, so did the same anxiety.
And I checked out.
Instead, I found my own way.
Through conversations.
Through books.
Through films.
Through curiosity.
Through real life.
No grades. No pressure. No performance.
Just learning that felt safe, meaningful, and mine.

Extract from Could Try Harder out May 2026 and available to pre order from all good bookstores now.

25/03/2026

25/03/2026

Grandparents – free online meet-ups

Do you know a Grandparent of an autistic person, or need support for your own family? Join our virtual meet-ups for relaxed and supportive online meetings. Book your free place for sessions in April with

www.autismcentral.org.uk/grandparent

24/03/2026

Anti-racism in speech and language therapy: towards diversity and inclusion for our profession and service usersNaomi Ignatius, senior SLT, Neurosciences SLT...

24/03/2026

Words from our Head of School, Kirsten Roy:

Most of the girls we meet didn’t “refuse school”.
They endured it.
Until they couldn’t anymore.

Behind what gets labelled as EBSA is often something far more complex:

– sensory overwhelm that never switches off
– social masking that is utterly exhausting
– anxiety that has been misunderstood as behaviour
– bright, capable minds that no longer feel safe enough to learn

And so they stop attending.
Not because they don’t care.
But because something in the system stopped working for them.

We work with neurodivergent girls who are out of school or unable to attend.
What changes things is not just “online learning”.
It is:
A space where they can arrive without being watched
A curriculum that flexes around their capacity
Adults who understand that trust comes before progress
A rhythm that rebuilds safety, then belonging, then engagement
And when that happens… learning follows.
Almost always.

If you are a parent trying to find a way back in for a young person, join our open event and chat with us.
Because these girls haven’t failed education.
Education has just not met them yet.

If you would like to know more about The Haven and our full programme of learning, or our Back to Balance programme, meet with Kirsten at our open event on Wednesday 25th March, book your place here via the link in the comments.

24/03/2026

I see this so often

24/03/2026

If Uta Frith makes you angry, this webinar is for you. Is Autism A Spectrum? Let's get into it.

https://connect.neurohubcommunity.org/events/7804E2

24/03/2026

Do you know that ENERGY: The Framework, Tools, Strategies, & Logic to Support Regulation has and entire appendix dedicated to helping individuals, their educational teams, therapists, families, etc. consider how to write goals that are meaningful and affirming?

It does.

It starts with this basic rubric we developed some years ago and extends into many additional concepts and considerations.

We'll use the next few posts to give you a few more insights into how we think about writing goals.

Some information from the original post introducing the rubric in 2022 -

The Checklist for Writing Individualized Goals is for us, the “the professionals,” the partners and parents. It is designed to ensure we understand our role in the goal writing process. We are collaborators and facilitators. We provide goal writing support and manage the process and paperwork.

This checklist is designed to remind us that our job is to make sure that the goals included in a person’s plan center on their perspective and desires, as they are the ones who will be working towards them and, thus, it is imperative that the goals are meaningful to the person. There are so many ways to ensure we do this… including ways for those who are non-verbal (e.g., those that use presymbolic means to communicate).

It’s a simple checklist, but for many professionals it will require a significant cognitive reframe and considerable effort to re-learn how to write individualized objectives – objectives that hold the individual at the center of the process and affirm all of their identities rather than objectives that address their “deficits” based on our judgements and biases.

Professionals are not experts. They are facilitators.
Professionals can help individuals identify meaningful objectives and can also provide critical support necessary to achieve the skills and abilities reflected in those objectives. We can provide support that scaffolds development of the person’s true self. Our role is vital, but it should never involve dictating what should be important to the person based on our perception of neuronormative standards.

We know better, we must do better. Level UP!

🔗to download in the comments
Image description the checklist text starts with
Individualized Goals:: Affirm the person’s identity/ies
Address the person’s priorities
Take into consideration the person’s individual preferences and neurodevelopmental differences when designing supports to facilitate growth / attainment

24/03/2026