Becky Harcus, Speech and Language Therapist

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Becky Harcus, Speech and Language Therapist

Godalming Speech and Language Therapist providing assessment and therapy for children in Surrey

Assessment and therapy usually takes place within the family home, where you and your child are comfortable and relaxed. Interacting with children within an environment they are familiar with enables me to observe their communication skills at their most natural. When regular therapeutic input is recommended, this can be organised to take place within the school setting for school-aged children and teenagers, or for preschoolers attending a nursery setting. Therapy can can be used to target a broad range of areas including:
-Listening and Attention
-Vocabulary and Word Retrieval Strategies
-Sequencing
-Expressive Language Skills (this may include a focus on sentence structure, grammar/syntax, using salient information, defining and describing, narrative, giving instructions, asking questions etc)
-Receptive Language Skills (this may include a focus on conceptual knowledge, following instructions/spoken information, understanding question forms etc)
-Speech Sounds/Intelligibility
-Fluency/Stammering
-Inferential Reasoning Skills
-Social Communication Skills (this may include a focus on turn taking, joint attention, reciprocal interaction, collaborative play, understanding of vocabulary linked to feelings and emotions, developing empathy and awareness of others perspectives, conversation skills, social problem-solving, understanding of the concept of friendship, teamworking etc)

31/10/2025

🎃 Halloween Scaries (Speech Therapy Edition) 🎃

28/10/2025

❌ Let’s cancel those questions and replace them with comments.

✔️ Comments give our children the language they need, and we know children need to hear the same words many times before they will understand and then be able to use them.

❓Asking questions can disrupt the natural flow of communication and lead to disengagement. It can feel like we are testing our children when we ask them questions which can put them off, especially if they don’t yet understand our questions or have the words to answer us.

➡️ Swap “what’s that?” 🔄 for “it’s a ball!”

➡️ Swap “who is it?” 🔄 for “it’s Mummy!”

➡️ Swap “where’s it gone?” 🔄 for “it’s in the bath!”

🗣️ As adults our conversations often take a question and answer format, and so taking out the questions can feel unnatural to start with, but it’s honestly such a game changer when we start switching our questions to comments!

Give it a go and let me know in the comments below what you noticed about interactions with your child or the children you work with!

24/10/2025

💭 Friday Musings 💭

🔑 Regulation is such an important foundation for developing communication.

🤔 Imagine how hard it will be to attend and take in information from your surroundings if you are:
❌ Not feeling safe
❌ Don’t feel comfortable
❌ Feel worried or anxious
❌ In fight or flight

👀 When we work with children and young people we need to look holistically at what is going on for that child and also consider the impact the environment (which is often huge).

🔎 Be curious and think about what their behaviours show us about how regulated or dysregulated they are.

📝 Focus on observing and keeping track of when they seem most and least regulated. What is happening for the child at these times?

❓ Can you build in more of the regulating activities and make adaptions to times which seem to trigger dysregulation?

♥️ Building trust, connection and rapport comes from a place of feeling safe and heard, this relies on regulation.

17/10/2025

🚨 DLD Awareness Day 🚨

Do you know what DLD is? It stands for Developmental Language Disorder.

DLD is a neurodevelopmental condition that typically affects on average 1 in every 14 students, it is very common but is a ‘hidden’ disability.

DLD emerges in childhood but persists into adulthood, it can be hard to define as everyone with it will present differently.

DLD is characterised by difficulty, understanding and/or using spoken language effectively and has huge implications for educational, emotional, behavioural and social success, without the correct identification and support.

Here are some common challenges often observed in individuals with DLD:
❤️ paying attention and listening to what others say to them
💙 understanding words and sentences e.g. answering questions, following instructions
💚 learning, storing and retrieving vocabulary
💜 using words to build sentences with accurate word order and grammar
💛 knowing how to use their communication skills to engage socially with their peers
🧡 learning to read and write
🖤 using accurate speech sounds

We urgently need to increase our awareness of DLD, particularly supporting education settings with identification and seeking specialist support.

Children with DLD can succeed but they need to be supported by speech and language therapists and teachers, to enable them to navigate and develop their language difficulties. Often DLD is diagnosed late and means sometimes years of missed intervention, we have a responsibility to increase awareness so that there is earlier identification and input.

03/09/2025

I kicked off my first day back to work by leading an inset day talk at a wonderful independent school this morning.

We thought about a typical school day through the lens of a neurodivergent student, with a particular focus on attention, communication, regulation and executive functioning differences.

We thought about monotropism, the double empathy problem, interoception and so much more!

It was so lovely to engage with the teaching staff, hear the challenges they notice in the classroom and be able to share strategies to support our children with a real focus on understanding, empathy and flexibility.

Thank you for having me it was such a pleasure!

27/11/2024

✌🏻Differences in Communication✌🏻

Exploring communication differences is so beneficial for helping children and young people to:
🩵develop self awareness in a safe affirming way
💜understand their own communication style and preferences
💛build awareness of others communication styles and preferences
💚consider differing perspectives
❤️develop an understanding of why communication can breakdown, if there are different expectations and perspectives around communication
🩷help them to learn how advocate for their own communication preferences and respect others communicative differences

Do you explore communication differences and preferences in your sessions?

Address

Godalming
GU8

Website

http://www.forgespeech.co.uk/

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