Back To Top

Speech Sound Development

Speech sounds start emerging when an infant starts to babble and continue to develop throughout early childhood up to approximately 8 years. All children develop uniquely, although usually follow a typical developmental pathway.

By the age of two years most children can be understood by familiar adults most of the time. By three years they can be understood by unfamiliar adults most of the time and by five years of age most children will be understood all of the time in all contexts.

 

A number of factors can influence a child’s capacity to develop effectively in this area including:

  • Middle ear complications – Conductive hearing loss
  • Disorders of muscle tone
  • Phonological processing difficulties
  • Motor speech difficulties
  • Global developmental delay
  • Receptive and Expressive language disorders
  • Brain trauma

If you are having trouble understanding your child or if other people do not understand them it can be extremely frustrating and often behaviour difficulties arise because of this. An assessment will determine whether your child is following an appropriate developmental pathway at a typical speed or whether there is a delay or disorder that requires treatment. Intervention will only be recommended if it is identified that your child will not develop a satisfactory complete speech system without support.

Justine can provide specialist intervention for children of all ages who are having difficulty developing effective and intelligible speech.

I contacted Justine about my 2.5 year old after his nursery raised some concerns about his mouth regularly being open and excess dribbling. Justine took the time to thoroughly understand the issue and the flags that nursery had identified as well as a detailed background of my son's life to date. She then provided us with some very useful advice but concluded we wouldn't benefit from treatment at this stage. I really appreciated her friendly and pragmatic communication and felt reassured after speaking with her that I knew how to help my son. I appreciated the time she invested, especially given it didn't result in any specific work for her. Thank you!

Katherine

Justine is an amazing therapist, my daughter has been lucky enough to see her in London weekly for Prompt therapy for the past 3 years. My daughters speech has improved so much as a result of her seeing Justine every week. I’m so grateful she gets to see Justine and can’t recommend her enough.

Hayley

I would recommend working with Justine, she is very kind, very patient and has found the perfect way to make my child understand, thank you so much Justine.

Nic

You have been a magician for Tristan!

Francesca

Justine you are an amazing,caring and passionate lady. We can't thank you enough.

Trisha and Marcus

Dear Justine, Thank you for being so wonderful and caring for Damien the way you have we really appreciate everything you have done for him.

Damien & Maria

Get in touch…

Give me a call
I am available from 9am-5pm weekdays. However, when I am consulting, I cannot answer the phone so please email or call my Administration Team who are ready to help.
Drop me an email
If you don’t have the time to talk now or it’s outside of hours please send me an email and I’ll get back to you.
Admin Team
01743 837200
With a growing practice, I have a team of admin staff who will liaise with you to register your interest, set things in motion, organise your free 15 minute consultation, and confirm assessments and therapy slots. This is the most effective and streamlined way of accessing myself and the therapy team.