24 Aug Improved speech driving Danielle’s confidence

Being able to speak like all the other kids is really important to five-year-old Danielle Woolstencroft’s confidence, according to her mum Glenda.

Every week Danielle and Glenda are doing a 50-minute session with Timboon and District Healthcare Service speech pathologist Narelle Jukes and the work is seeing results.

Glenda is no stranger to speech pathology – four of her five children have needed help. She was happy to share Danielle’s story to help mark Speech Pathology Week (August 23-29).

“Danielle is our youngest and we knew from a very young age that she would need help with her speech. She did a speech review at kinder last year and we were referred here to Narelle to give us some help and guidance,” Glenda said.

“I know it’s a confidence thing for Danielle – she doesn’t like to speak to people because they don’t understand her. That’s hard to watch – to see her so self-conscious like that.

“We can already see improvement and Danielle is starting to have conversations with people now that she wouldn’t have before and that’s wonderful.”

Glenda said she also attended the sessions with Narelle to understand what they were working on and to continue the work at home.

“Danielle struggles with sounds – she can’t form some like ge and ke which are back sounds made near the throat,” she said.

“She also struggles with blend sounds as well like st and tr so words like truck were really difficult for her.

“What the sessions with Narelle do is help Danielle understand how the sounds are made with her mouth – to feel where they are coming from so she can learn how to make it.”

Glenda said her other children who needed help with their speech now spoke fine and she could tell from Danielle’s progress that she would also get past this phase in her life.

“The other three children also went to a speech pathologist when they were four or five and by the time they hit grade one they didn’t need any more assistance,” she said.

“Danielle is working hard and we’re getting there now. Kids her age are pretty good, they don’t pick on her or anything like that which is nice.”

To make an appointment with our accredited Speech Pathologist Narelle please call 5558 6000.