Hey! Thank you for landing on my page! Welcome! I've never written a blog before so bear with me.
Introductions first, my name is Laura Bottiglieri. I am a Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist. I qualified in 2014 from the University of East Anglia. I have a post graduate qualification in Paediatric Dysphagia (children's eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties) and a Masters degree in Healthcare Management. I specialise in Paediatric Dysphagia in my job in the NHS and am passionate about helping families feel happy and confident with their child's eating and drinking.
I also recently started in my favourite role yet - Mummy to my 8 month old bundle of joy! Whilst I've been supporting other families in a professional capacity for a decade I am now learning the weaning ropes as a new Mum; a very different ball game! I always thought and hoped I could empathize with my clients but I'm with you on a whole other level now!
I love my job in the NHS but increased pressure on services means less time to support families of babies / children to meet their eating and drinking goals and overcome their challenges. There is growing need out there for families who are desperate for support for their reluctant eaters, for their fussy eaters, for their ate once and never again eaters, for their I'll only eat if Mummy feeds me eaters, for their my child only eats certain textures or won't chew eaters, for their will only eat walking around eaters. I'm hearing more and more that the families that fall in these categories have nowhere to turn to and no one to help them because the service doesn't exist or their child's eating isn't 'bad' enough or risky enough (more on this in another post). If the support isn't there or there is limited service to prevent these things becoming issues in the first place this can create entrenched eating and drinking difficulties that didn't need to be a difficultly in the first place which then has a knock on effect on the health service; the vicious cycle continues.
I want to be that service for you!
What actually does a Speech and Language Therapist do?
Most people I come across, understandably, have no idea what a Speech and Language Therapist (I'll use the term SLT from now on) actually does. We can explain it quickly in jargon but that doesn't always show the depth and breadth of our daily working lives. There are so many strings to an SLT's bow that they may as well be a harp. In the team I work in, there are around 100 staff and we all have our own unique combination of skills and specialism.
Contrary to popular belief stammering work is a much smaller proportion of what SLTs do. There's:
Attention and listening
Understanding
Speech sounds
Stammering
Voice work
Acquired language difficulties (when a child has a brain injury)
Spoken language - sentence building, grammar etc.
Alternative and augmentative communication - using tools to support children to express themselves when they find that difficult verbally
Social skills
Deafness and hearing impairment
Speech work specific to craniofacial differences like cleft lip and palate
Developmental language disorder
English as an Additional Language
And of course Eating, Drinking and Swallowing difficulties, which has it's own list of difficulties
Then there's the range of client groups that fall amongst all the above categories:
Infants
Early years
School age groups, primary & secondary
Special Education and all the children with the many developmental disabilities diagnoses
Youth offending services
Social emotional mental health needs
Physical disabilities
Neurodivergence
Trauma
Hearing impairment
And these are just the children's services, there are many more strings in the adult and adults with learning disabilities world of SLT.
Assessment and Therapy
Then there's the next bit, assessment and therapy. Again understandably, there is an assumption that when your child finally sees an SLT, they'll work directly with your child, sort out the difficulty and send you on your way. That doesn't happen and then further confusion. The SLT says I'm going to show you what to do, not me. What, I have to do this at home?! You're the expert! The truth is, the carer who spends the most day to day time with your child and everyone in between is best placed to work on strategies because the child needs such a high amount of input. One hour a week in a room with someone they don't know won't change their difficulties but YOU can. They also need to be practicing their new skills in the places they need to use those skills so they make sense.
So there is no wonder that referral to speech and language therapy for your child can cause confusion and uncertainty.
Final thought for now:
My hope is that I can start to reach as many families / care givers as possible to help them on their child's eating journey. I want to empower you all to be your child's best support and do that together. I want to be candid, realistic and hopefully make working on your child's difficulties something you feel you can manage and embrace. We can build a community of support and get to know each other over time. One day, if you'll have me I would love to offer direct support through consultations and coaching but that's a way off yet. Let's see where this takes us first.
Wherever you are in the world, Bon appetit!
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