EP 77: Speech & Language Therapy with Olly Stewart
Please excuse any errors in this autogenerated transcript
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Welcome to the Send Parenting Podcast. I'm your neurodiverse host, dr Olivia Kessel, and, more importantly, I'm mother to my wonderfully neurodivergent daughter, alexandra, who really inspired this podcast. As a veteran in navigating the world of neurodiversity in a UK education system, I've uncovered a wealth of misinformation, alongside many answers and solutions that were never taught to me in medical school or in any of the parenting handbooks. Each week on this podcast, I will be bringing the experts to your ears to empower you on your parenting crusade. In this episode, I'm going to be joined by Ollie Stewart, a speech and language therapist from the Involving Mind Clinic, who's going to demystify what exactly is a speech and language therapist, or, as they're known, salts, what do they actually do and how can they support our children in terms of communication and social skills. So welcome, ollie.
01:07
It is such a pleasure to have you on the SEND Parenting Podcast. You are a speech and language therapist and today we're going to explore what does that mean and then how can it actually help our neurodiverse kids, you know, address some of the challenges that they're having and then, kind of you know, I know from my perspective address some of the challenges that they're having and then, kind of you know, I know from my perspective, you guys are as rare as Heinz teeth salt therapist. So we're going to look into like why, why is that so and what can parents actually do in some tools and techniques that they can do at home? So that's a lot, but let's start with welcome, ollie, and can you, you know, tell us a little bit about salt.
Olly StewartGuest
Hello, thanks for having me on Um. So, yeah, what is a speech and language therapist? So speech and language therapist is not a very good term for what we are. We're more of sort of a communication interaction specialist, I guess you'd call us. We focus on communication as a whole, so not just speaking and words, but you know all forms of um communication, be that verbal, non-verbal, through a aac device, so augmented and alternative communicative device um. So that's kind of what we do and we work with people from birth all the way.
02:19
Oh, some speech language therapists as well. I'm not dysphagia trained, but we'll also work with dysphagia, which is um swallowing difficulties. So you might see people speech language therapists in a stroke ward in a hospital, for example, and they won't do, but they will do some communicative stuff. But their one of their primary roles will be um supporting people to be able to manage their drinking and eating um, which is obviously quite an important part of life. Um, if you can't do that, you're in a bit of a problem, and even for some people who may not be able to eat and drink, it might be things such as managing energy tubes, potentially.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
So, yeah, so, everyone who's. So it can be quite clinical. But from a perspective of working with children, which I think is huge, what you're saying here, that it's communication, because I think you know some of your perception with speech and language, you're thinking, oh, do they have a stutter, do they have something you know wrong? But it's actually how you communicate with the world and how the world communicates with you.
Olly StewartGuest
Yeah, it's, you know, and it's all about how you, it's almost about how you interface face with, with your, with your surroundings. Um, that's probably you know. Maybe we should call ourselves interface specialists, that that would be all college of interface specialists, for example. You know, because it's not just a case of, like you said, oh little bobby's got a stammer, or someone potentially, you know, can't do his p's and q's. Actually it's, it's way more about that. Yeah, it's, it's completely you know. Are you being, are you able to make eye contact with someone? Is that difficulty? Do you use gesture? Do you use facial expression? Do you even engage with other people? And if not, what is the barrier to that? Is it because you just don't really want to? Is it because you've got a difficulty somewhere, or a difference with them leads to being a difficulty? So it's a huge, huge area and you know, I think yeah, and you've mentioned the main way to see if someone is there.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Yeah, cool no, you've mentioned to me the communication pyramid, so how, how you kind of assess people's communication within that?
Olly StewartGuest
yeah, so, um, the communication pyramid is sort of a. It's a like a hierarchy, I guess you'd call it. It's not quite a hierarchy that you don't have to have one to have the other. You can sort of intermingle. But it's nice to think of it as a hierarchy in terms of skills that someone needs to communicate. So right at the bottom you have attention and listening skills. You know, if you can't attend and listen to what someone's saying, you can't communicate with them. Communicate with them, basically, if you, if you cannot give your attention to someone and listen to what the words come out their mouth, or look at the gestures they make or the things they point to them, you, you, you can't, you can't give any cognitive resource to it. Um, so you need to be able to attend and listen to people. Then we have what is like the social communication, which is sort of the next level. Um, now, this is huge. This encompasses so much. It's not just your ability to, you know, listen to what someone said and communicate back to them appropriately, but it's also things like do you make eye contact? Do you look at gesture? Do you understand shared enjoyment? Do you look at how a social contact context might be affecting what someone is talking about. For example, um, you know, if someone comes out of an exam and says, oh, that went well. Well, that means something completely different to if they went oh, that went really well. Very similar sentence structures, but the tone of voice and the scenario completely alters the whole meaning of what you said. So that's all the social communication bit.
05:41
Then we also have something called receptive language, which is kind of what it says on the tin, which is your ability to understand language that you're receiving. So the stuff that other people are telling you, that's your receptive language. And if you have a deficit in that, it doesn't matter how good you are at using words and putting words together. If you don't understand what someone's telling you, you don't understand what someone's telling you, you can't, you don't understand what's going around you. So you know, a receptive language deficit is almost more it leaves you a bit more vulnerable than, say, an expressive language deficit, whereas expressive language is kind of what it says in the tin, your ability to express yourself. So that's how well can you put your words into sentences, how good is your ability to use the right word in the right context, for example, um, and then right at the tippy top we have the last little bit, which is um speech sounds, which is being able to, to your brain being able to recognize what do I want to say, for example, the word cat sending the signal down the nerves into your mouth and then your muscles and tongue producing the sounds to make the word cat.
06:49
So that is kind of our communication pyramid and there can be a deficit anywhere within that or difficulty. You know it could be for any reason, could be something like autism, it could be that you've had a traumatic brain injury. You could just have a developmental language disorder, which is really common. You know that's one in probably two kids in every class of 30 will have a development language disorder. Statistically it's the most. It's the most common unknown or poorly known disorder that people have um, um. So yeah, so you know, anywhere in this whole bit, from just listening to what someone said to being able to get the words out you can have a difficulty anywhere and it can massively impact how someone, like I said earlier, interfaces with the world around them.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Yeah, that can become really challenging for children in terms of, you know, peer relationships. In terms of school, it's got a huge, massive impact. And you know salt is salt in schools. And you know salt is salt in schools, like, you know it's not part of it's something you have to, like, search for outside of school. And when would you know? I guess, like, how do you know? If you know, does it benefit? You know, should all autistic children go to a salt? Should all kids with ADHD? Like? How do you determine? Or you know, if your child is in one of those, one of two, that have this developmental issue with their speech? How do you, as a parent, do schools pick up on it? I guess I'm trying to understand and help my listeners understand. When you know that you should go to a speech and language therapist, how to? It's a big question.
Olly StewartGuest
Yes, the million dollar question, that one. The next million dollar question is will my child talk? But that is one of the million dollar questions, um, you know. So, yeah, there's generally if a child is in school, and this is so, so area specific. So when I, for example, like the local authority that I worked for, we had a main, we had a schools based team. So the schools you know your listeners, probably maybe other previous speakers have said this, but essentially the schools you know your listeners, probably maybe other previous speakers have said this, but essentially the schools have a pot of money for children with special educational needs and disabilities and then um, depending on just you know, postcode lottery kind of depends where you are.
08:58
Some schools will put that money back to the local authority and then they get like a free um, free access to speech and language. That's what happened in my old service. Is the schools at their pot of money? They put x amount of this money back into the local authority and the local authority said, great, fine, now if you need speech language therapist, as long as there has, we've got availability, the speech language therapist will come in free of charge to work with these children to meet educational health care plan for the statutory need um, and then on top of that any what's called we call. It call it was just basically non-statutory children who might have a bit of speech sound difficulty or they're a little bit bubbling below, do they need some support like that? It could be that. So you know through my current, the current business that I work for we um, we are employed by one school to go to that school. In that school the local authority have said to the school you've got your pot of money, do with this as you need to do with it, kind of. So they are. So it works like that and you know there'll be, usually as an nhs therapist that will be linked in some way, or a public sector, because it might be local authority. My previous job, I was local authority, not nhs, but a commissioned, we'll call it. A commissioned therapist will usually be attached to the school in some way, but they may just not have capacity to go and see every child in there. Um, so schools and nurseries are similar. Nurseries work on us in a similar way. Um, if you uh.
10:23
Sixth form, however, colleges are a completely different catfish. I think that's way more you. It's either you can either have an EHCP or the college gets in um, they, they, the college sort of brings them in. Again, it depends on service. It depends on the service. But yes, sixth forms are a bit more tricky. Um, but yeah, so in terms of when does that does the child need to be seen? Um, but yeah, so in terms of when does that does the child need to be seen?
10:48
For childs in school or in a nursery, there should be a senko who should be looking out for this and they should be going. Oh, actually no, um, little bobby, for example, he's, he's not quite in line with where his peers are. The senko should have an, should have an understanding of where, um, a child is supposed to be at a certain age. Again, senko, like Skank, I've worked with some absolutely brilliant Senkos in the past who were really on the ball, and I've worked with some Senkos who maybe they're a bit newer to the job or they just tend to have enough training or whatever, and they were just you know, I'd go in and go, oh, actually, I think that child needs to be seen as well. I think you need to refer him pretty damn quick. Um, so you know, yeah, it's.
11:30
And then if the child is, you know, if you're concerned about child and they're pre-nursery age, um, then typically that, typically that is something which will have been picked up by the health visitor. So the health visitor should then advise um, and yeah, you know the other. The other thing obviously compare your. Nobody wants to compare their children to other children, but parents say a lot, you know. Oh, he's not the same as the other kids in his neonatal group or something and that's why we just can't speak the language.
11:54
Yeah, in terms of what the speech-language therapists will then do with a child, you know, if they're in school or nursery or whatever is, we tend not to look at it from a point of view of little Johnny's got autism, he needs help, because that's a bit like an older way of looking at it and that was kind of based on when autism was diagnosed. If you look at other ICD 6, 7, 8, whatever and the DSM, those diagnostic manuals, the older ones, where it was only the children who you might call us the more maybe obvious or more severe for one I don't know what a better way of saying it, but you know, those kids who stand out with their needs, more um a lot what we might have called when we had the differentiation between asperger's and autism, so those asperger's, what you might call, like quote unquote, higher functioning, and the autism, what you call back then the lower functioning, before we realized it was like a spectrum. So then it would have been sort of go and deal with the children because they've got the diagnosis, because that diagnosis came with the part of the diagnostic criteria was due to a child had a language difficulty or delayed language. So now it's more a case of, rather than looking at the diagnosis, we look at what needs to the child have. So you could have a child who would be considered as a low functioning child. You know, they've maybe got a low IQ, they're in a special school, they're not doing things like SATs, it's more of a holistic life skills approach, education.
13:20
But actually that child's in a special school, so their needs are being met. They do have language difficulties but because they are working with staff who are good at identifying those difficulties, they might be good at doing things like introducing something like PECS Picture Exchange Communication System which is what it says on the tin you exchange a picture to communicate. You know there's all these things in place in this school. So actually all the barriers are removed and if the barriers are removed, then there is no. You know you might want a speech language therapist just to check in once a term, but there's not actually a need for the speech language therapist to do direct intervention because that child's needs are being met and at the same time you might have a kid who's on paper. Their needs are significantly less. You know they're an intelligent child, they're fully verbal.
14:11
Um, they're in a mainstream school, however, because they are, maybe then they're in a busy environment. They're in a busy school, there's lots going on actually, that their needs might be higher because they're around a lot a group of typically developing children, for example, and there's a lot of social language going on, and actually this poor child in the mainstream school is like I don't understand what people are telling me, and then you might see a lot more behavioural issues and a lot more anxiety and things like that. So then there would be a need, a really intense need, and then we would probably do it or we'd try, depending on, you know, if it's public sector sector, there's not necessarily resources, but we can come on to that later. But that's that's why that, that's why we try to focus on the need rather than the, the label, um, the diagnosis yeah, which is which is great right now, ollie, because a lot of people don't have diagnoses right.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
So the people are waiting years and years for diagnoses and and and the ship has honestly almost sailed by the time you get a diagnosis you can. You know, waiting three years is is just not, not tenable. So it's, it's, it's. For my medical mind, it seems like a much better way to look at things, based on need and and and environment in terms of what that child needs, versus diagnosis and then automatically being referred when they might not need need that. So it makes a lot of sense.
Olly StewartGuest
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and it's. You know, it's kind of you have to look at it from a super medical way. It would be saying, actually, do you know what A and E is full? But we can still put a plaster wrap, a bandage, around this person's finger to stem the bleeding and then they can suture it as and when it's needed. It's like you know this. The doctor can look at it and go, oh well, yeah, you cut your finger because you I don't know and you've you cut your finger because x, y and z, but actually we stemmed the bleeding. So you know what? Just go home, keep it safe, you'll be okay. It's, it works like that. It's, yeah, it's very much a needs. It's very much we're going towards a needs focused and I don't know how familiar your listeners might be with the World Health Organization. They've got a framework called the International Classifications of Diseases framework.
16:11
Essentially, you have at the top, you've got an impairment, but you have a lot of things around it. So you've got your child's ability to participate, their ability to join an activity. You know what contextual factors are there and rather than just looking at the impairment and going bobby's got an impairment, we go actually, what are the. What is his access to activities and participation? If he can access everything that he would like to, who are we to say he's got an impairment. You know it's, it's it's all about. Does this person? Can this person lead a fulfilling life and what are the barriers to that? And then overcoming those barriers, rather than going just because he's got a label. There's something wrong with him?
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Yeah, and it sounds to me like and you know, this is where we get kind of like into the tips for parents as well, as you know that there's a lot of accommodation, whether that be at school or with the parents, in terms of um how you can and I guess it's very personalized as well but how you can support that child to be able to meet those challenges without necessarily even improving their speech and language, but to help them to have um support and adaptations to help them cross those kind of um challenges they might be having.
Olly StewartGuest
y eah, yeah it is, and you know it's one of those key words that get banded around all the time, but it is a child-centered approach. You know we have a lot of fancy words in special educational needs but essentially the point of it is the child has some, there are some barriers. That means this child's differences means that those barriers mean those differences become difficulties If you remove those barriers, like I said, and you just focus on what do we want this child to achieve? Also, what does the kid want to achieve? You know I've worked with children before and I've said that you know, especially when they become teenagers and they've got a bit more agency and they want to have more ownership over what they do. And you know you can say I've had conversations with children where I've said look, I feel, I think that you find this difficult. In fact I know you find this difficult because we've talked about it before. You know it might be.
18:11
For example, there was one kid who um found understanding, like some of the peer relationships, really tricky. But he said to me he's like I don't really care. I've got my friends that I play video games with. They know that I've got these difficulties. You know, if I say something rude, they just brush it off and go you can't say that because of x, y and z. And then the kid will be like, oh okay, I get it, that's cool. And then they just move on and he's like I don't, I don't need, I don't need to be friends with everyone else, so I don't want these skills. And then I said to him well, why don't we work on it? A case of then is as long as you can prove to me that you know how to potentially rectify a situation if it goes wrong, and to recognize it and to be able to work on it, we can stop speech language therapy. You can like that's fine, and that's what the child wanted.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Well, that must be highly motivating for a teenager, exactly yeah, because he's like I don't want to keep coming out to speak language.
Olly StewartGuest
All the time I was like, well, I think I'm quite fun, but maybe I'm not as fun as I think I am, um, you know. And so we worked on these few bits bish, bash, bosh, and then he's done, he's happy and he's, he's, his, what he seems, as the barriers for him there's. There may be some other barriers that we're picking up on, differences that become difficulties, but actually for him they're not a problem, he's. I don't care about those, it doesn't affect me if I, if I, annoy someone that I'm never going to see again after I've finished year 11, what, what's that to me? I was like, fair enough, that is a completely fair way of doing it. So yeah, to sort of answer that original question, it's rather than focusing on the diagnosis, we just focus on what is the need and what does the child want us need? What can we do to support the child, to overcome any barriers?
Dr Olivia KesselHost
really, yeah, and I think you know, for, for I know, for speaking for my daughter who has ADHD, it's a struggle with her with, you know, she, she, you know she suffers from peer rejection because of some of her emotional regulation, her, her expressive and and and receptive speech, and you know she struggles to not get excluded on the playground.
20:02
So for her she would really, you know, and so she's in social skills groups and but this morning she said to me she goes, you know, one of the one of the she's she's been, you know, bullied a little bit or just not not really bullied, but excluded.
20:13
But you know, don't want to play with her. And another little girl has been excluded at her school and she said you know what, mommy, I'm going to go and I'm going to go and hang out with her, cause I know, I know how, I know how to talk to autistic people. She's not autistic herself, but one of her best, one of her friends that she goes in the taxi with, is autistic. She's like so and I know what it feels like and I said so you know, see, all the troubles you've had, you've now turned into a positive because you want to help somebody and you know you want to go and communicate with somebody, which is great, but it definitely it makes it harder because she can't, she's not at the having the ability to communicate like other kids on the playground and it does.
Olly StewartGuest
It causes a lot of uh, angst and not wanting to go to school and it does, and you know we we sit with it's. It's such a a divide. I I very rarely find that I work with children who have, you know, some children have different difficulties whatever with communicating with their peers. Either either they're just blasé, they go. You know, I don't really care, it just is what it is. I'll just bumble along. I've got enough people that I know I can talk to, that would enjoy being with me. Or they're children that very much take it to heart and I think it's so. There's no children in the middle who are like, well, it upsets me a little bit more that way it's, they're just. They're just too it's.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
You know, 99% of the kids are either end and it's so polarized and it's just really interesting seeing sort of you know how children overcome it, yeah, and how do you work with the kids. So we've talked about the kid. That's kind of like I don't care, I'll find my friends, which I think is a great attitude in life to the kids that like, are more like my daughter, who's like you know. This is causing anxiety. This is causing my her self-esteem to plummet. This is, you know, she's. I just want to find friends, mommy. I want people to like me, you know, and it's the communication that's at the nub of that.
Olly StewartGuest
Yeah. So there's sort of like a two-pronged approach that personally I will take. I mean, obviously I think it's a good way of doing it because I do it, but I think it works quite nicely as you. You look at the first of all, okay, what are the difficulties, the breakdowns, where, not only so it's not where do I think they're coming from, but where does the child think they're coming from? You know, is it the? What do you think is difficult? And then getting the child to sort of critically think, okay, well, maybe it was, I don't know, it might have been.
22:24
There's something I use called social behavior maps and what, and there is part of the zones of regulation curriculum, but that general social thinking stuff which is a really. I really enjoy that curriculum and it sort of starts with someone. There's a doer, so person A does something, and then that makes person B feel a certain way, and then person B reacts based on what they felt, and then that person B's reaction then makes person A feel a certain way, and then person A reacts based on their feelings, and it goes around in a chain and I quite like doing that and saying, okay, well, so if you're person A, potentially you've done something. You can see how person B reacted, but often the difficulty is understanding why they've reacted that way. And if we can teach children to recognize the why they've the other person's reacted a certain way, then we can say okay, so how might you adjust your behavior going forward? How might you take ownership?
23:18
Because I think the thing that can upset a lot of children is they feel like they don't have any ownership over it. They're like I don't know how to fix this. It's. It's not so much the rejection hurts, but if they could fix. I think if the thing with the children who don't care is that they know, well, I know I can probably fix it if I wanted, I just don't care enough to fix it. Um, so, by giving children the skills to know how to fix it and to recognize why something has happened not just to recognize that it has happened, but why that has happened if you know to recognise that it has happened but why that has happened, if you know the why, you can fix it. And that's one of the streams I go up. And then the other stream is kind of working with children to think you know what is the problem, what is it that makes you feel upset by it. I guess it's probably like a talking therapy slash CBT type approach, you know.
24:08
I'm not training either of those, I just sort of it's just from past experiences. Well, this is what I might do to you know, how it made me feel was X, y and Z. And actually I need to think about okay, but why does it make me feel that way? And then again, if the child can think about why it makes them feel that way, and then okay, well, this makes me feel down inside because I don't like arguing with people. And then you can link that back around to the whole well, why did you argue in the first place? And then you can be like, well, if I'd changed that, then I wouldn't argue with them, and then that wouldn't make me feel upset, and then it would be all happy. Well, mostly happy days, and I think the other really- Itizes and explains it, doesn't it contextual, it, it, it.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
It takes something that's purely raw emotion and and lack of understanding of what you know what, what started it and what that domino effect is and it's calling it out and then being able to to be in control of it.
Olly StewartGuest
Really, yeah, and I think sometimes it's also the you know the last little nugget is definitely and the last nugget teaching children that you know the last little nugget is definitely that and the last nugget teaching children. Actually you're not always going to be friends with the same people for your whole life. You know people fall out. People fall out for the most ridiculous reasons and as a child you know, as a little like a four or five year old, you just brush it off and go. I will just be friends again tomorrow. That's fine. But you know, as you get to a teenager's and adult life, like it doesn't, it does and that's fine. You know it's. These things happen and as long as you can go and talk about it to other people be that your parents, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your other you know the rest of your friends, that's fine. Talk about it, work out how it went wrong and you can move on it's. You know the end of the day. You're still happy, you're still healthy, you're still walking, you're still talking, you know nothing major has gone wrong, you're still going to go home to a nice warm dinner. Actually the grand scheme of things. If you've fallen out with someone for a little bit, it's not, you can fix it. And if you don't want to fix it, don't, that's fine, you just leave it, you don't. You don't go off and badmouth that person, but you just crack on with the rest of your life.
26:09
Really, I think it's about teaching kids. I think a big part of what speech and language therapy is is not just teaching little Johnny to get your words in the right order, or especially the social communication stuff. It's not just teaching them how to fix this situation. It's giving them the life skills to know that you can fix any situation going forward. Um, you know, sort of the. The main thing that we want to do as a speech language therapist is to discharge someone. We we don't want someone to be on our books for ages because that means we're not doing our job. If we can discharge someone to the point where we know actually little johnny can now and it may be that they've got to come back things might get get difficult when they're older fine, come back to us but if we can discharge you now, then it means we think you're actually doing quite well and that's where we want you to be.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Yeah, I think that's. You know, that's how all therapy should be, but unfortunately it's not always. Specially, you know, some therapists you know want you to. And then also that the skills that you're teaching them and the way that you're getting them to look at life and to be resilient really in life and giving them the skills to be able to do that- yeah, yeah.
27:18
It's great. So you know, like I don't know about my listeners, but you know I'm like. You know this sounds great for my child or this sounds great for you know, whether or not they have it in schools or not, and I know that schools are struggling in terms of resources. The local authority is struggling in terms of resources and, as a resource speech and language therapists are, we don't have as many as we need. I would say there's a shortage. Similarly, as we have shortage of doctors and nurses, there seems to be a shortage of salts. What do you think is the the reason for that?
Olly StewartGuest
that's another big question, another million dollar question. Um, oh, the lack of resources, lack of like, yeah, lack of resources, obviously a really big one there's. That's partly. You know, when I was went to uni, I left uni what? Five, six years ago, and my course is one of the last years where the nhs funded the course. But they would, they took that away.
28:12
So then, okay, that was that was a big incentive to go because I go well, I've got a four-year course with a guaranteed job where I'm not going to have any university fees. Nice, that's gone. So that is a is a. I don't know if they're doing it partly or whatever now, but I know that it's gone. So that is obviously reducing the number of people going through.
28:29
But we've always historically been quite, there's always been a need for well, historically, my sort of the maybe generational before me, two generations before me, there weren't many jobs out there.
28:44
It was really competitive to get a job and that's because the scope of need know, it was easy easy, in inverted commas to find a speech and language therapist, because people didn't necessarily. Our scope has increased and the, the recognition of need has increased massively. So you know my, my supervisor, for example, she, she said that when she first went to get a job it was really competitive because you, you had just real special schools and then you kind of had, might have had the odd kid, you couldn't do their p's and q's in mainstream. But that was it all. The kids that we identify as like, those children who are autistic, for example, who can manage a mainstream but struggle, it was just labeled as behavioral difficulties, not a communication difficulty. So, but let's say, probably within the last, I don't know 10 looking at the behavior instead of the cause exactly yeah looking at the behavior instead of the cause, which, thankfully, we're starting to shift exactly, and it's shifted massively.
29:35
Now it's. You know we, rather than just telling this kid off, actually we need to work out why they're doing it. And then so there's been a massive, massive growth in the need, in the recognition of the need to speak to language therapists, but partly the course sizes haven't increased, so they're still taking 40 50 massive growth in the need, in the recognition of the need to speak to an anglicotherapist, but partly the course sizes haven't increased, so they're still taking 40 50 people a year. Um, you know that that's. That's to do with a lot of things. Like the university lecturers know way more about that.
30:00
But I think that's partly because just the way we haven't got enough lecturers in the first place, like the buildings may not be big enough. You know there's a whole range of things for that, so we're not getting a big amount of people coming through um. But that's also because I don't know if many people are applying. There'll be a lot of people applying for courses, but but not as many as, say, go for psychology or as many go for business, because I think it's unless someone's and I think ot is probably in a worse place than speech and language. To be honest, it's not like physio, where you know a lot of people might go. Oh, I tweaked a muscle in my leg right. I want to see the physio. Unless you've had a direct contact with a speech and language therapist, either because you've got a sibling, or you worked in a school, or you know your grandparent was in hospital and had a speech and language therapist. Unless you've got that kind of exposure, nobody knows about speech and language therapy. Nobody knows about occupational therapy.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
It's an enigma. That's why I wanted to have a podcast. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I think I would argue with you that SALT is even less known than the no T, but maybe that's just because my daughter's been to an OT, so that could be why. But yeah, no, you're right, it's not a known career path and also perhaps there's preconception of that career path being very much your P's and Q's, your stutterings, where actually it's a much broader job with a much bigger impact, which I think if people understood would make it more interesting or sexy, not you know, because you're actually really making a big difference in kids' lives.
Olly StewartGuest
Yeah, massively. And you know, and it's yeah, I think it is. It's the lack of understanding what it is. People think of two-pal earring as a necklace when they think of a speech language therapist, you know, I mean, and it's the sort of part of the demographics that go for it. Like you know, it's 98%. The last stat I saw from the Royal College was it's 98% women you know I worked with. So in my last job there was about 140 of us in the team at the local authority and there were four blokes, I think five split over and that's such a huge.
32:10
You know, when I was at university, I think when I started, there was a guy in his final year and when I, I think I left, there was a guy in first year, but otherwise that was it. You know there's 160 students and there's one bloke first year, but otherwise, that was it. You know there's 160 students in this one bloke. Um, so I think it's, it's, it's there's, there's a lot of work and I don't. I like I haven't got the answer. If the rcsl t listen to this, I'm sorry I don't have the answer, but yeah, no, I know a lot of work around.
32:36
It's interesting and and I think there's there's partly like a, a conception, I think, with health in general, that health doesn't pay. That doesn't pay very well, so people go. You know what's the point of doing it? When I could just go, you know I could go to tesco's and earn the same hourly rate being a driver. You know what? What's the point in doing this long course, especially now when you've got a fund? Yeah, this long course, that's a tricky course and it and it's a job that you know, can have quite an emotional toll.
33:05
Um, and it can be quite a physically tiring job as well, you know, depending on what, where you're working, like when I used to be in, I used to work in a special school three days a week and, you know, and those kids, I loved it, I absolutely loved it. I would, but it, you know, I'd finish and I'd feel drained by the end of the day. I'd go to the gym to perk back up again. You know, and it can be an emotional and you know we deal with kids who come from like you know, it's the same with teachers. You get kids who come from difficult backgrounds, they've got a lot going on and sometimes it's just really sad because you just see like I've done everything I can but this kid isn't going anywhere until the whole life factors around this child change, um and that, and it does take a bit of a toll.
33:47
I think some people just go, what's the point? I don't want to get bit and spat on you know, shout it out, when I could just go sit in an office job nine to five poo home in my on you know company car and I'm sorted, um, yeah. So I think there's a lot of things around that. It's a perception thing as well. Like you said, it's such a, you know, it's a job where it is rewarding and there's so much and it's so interesting, there's so many different niches that you can be involved in that. It is a great job. But there's just so much lack of knowledge and I think the knowledge that people do have is that, oh, it's health, it's a for like old, it's like an old lady thing to do. You know, like I said, two perlerians, a necklace, like oh, I don't really want to do that, whereas actually this is full of youngsters. It's full of youngsters, it's fun and yeah yeah, I think you know.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
You you've summed it up really well there.
34:35
You know there's there's there's financial pressures because we don't get paid enough in in health or pay for our worth.
34:41
You know having to pay for the university, for then not having a high salary, and you know all the other things that the lack of knowledge or perception all contribute to it.
34:51
But you know, I think, after listening and hearing your passion, and you know how how good I think you are at your job and what you do, I think it would probably inspire some more people. And we've got to, we've got to start changing how, how we pay people you know in in terms of health, because it is, it is key to have good people in these roles, because we're creating the adults of the future and we need we need to have the right supports and places for them. So I think you've definitely opened up my mind and probably some of my listeners' minds too, and I know a lot of people who do take those corporate jobs with the corporate cars and they feel like they're a sausage in the sausage factory often can retrain in their in their older years because they just have enough of of actually being that individual too, cause your job sounds quite rewarding, ollie. With all the stress and everything else, it sounds quite rewarding as well. So it's a.
35:39
It's a balance and you know, I think you know as the world changes, hopefully these things shift as well, where we're not looking, you know, to have truck drivers being paid the same amount of money as people who've, you know, been upskilled and spend a lot of time training and, you know, are working with children. Thank you for your time today, ollie. Now I always end my podcast with three top tips, and I know you've been forewarned because you know we've talked about a lot, but what three top tips would you give parents that they could just put in their back pocket and take away after listening to this podcast?
Olly StewartGuest
So the three there's. You know, I think the three top tips are probably not actually what you can do to help your child. I think it's more, not more. So I'll go through them and people kind of understand what I mean. So the first one is if you're worried about your child, don't just take any old thing off the internet. Don't listen to tiktok, something like that. Go to the royal college of speech and language therapist website, the rcsl torg. I think it is the American Speech and Hearing Association, asha their website. They've got some really, really good things about where children should be in terms of the developmental norms and it's free to access. A lot of this stuff is free to access and you can go to the NHS website. But I think the ASHA and RCSLT websites they have because they're specialized websites. They are for speech and language therapy.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
And you know what, I'll include those links in the podcast notes so that parents can access it when they listen to this.
Olly StewartGuest
Brilliant and you know those are specialized websites where they've got the information and they can direct you to speech and language therapists and they can give you information. You know you can also probably like most local authority speech language therapy services and most nhs speech language therapy services will have either a hotline or an email address and if you're really worried, just ping them an email, just say, look, this is where my child is at. I don't know how to get started, can you help me? And it may be that they turn around and say, actually you know what, based on what you said, and they hit your child. Don't be worried yet, keep an eye on it, but don't worry too much. Or they might say go to your gp, get through to this blah blah or talk to senko, they'll give you information. So do that. Don't go to things like mumsnet or reddit or tiktok they they might have some information on there. But go to the specialized websites, go to the places which are set up for these things. Um, the next one kind of like fit was into that in the we speech and language therapists. We know you're really worried. We know you're concerned about your child.
38:12
Um, we've only got finite resources. Like we've discussed. There's not many of us. There's a lot of children who have need. So like, just try and work with us, don't work against us. You know speech and language. That's speaking from experience. Like we will, that the parent that works with us. We are way more likely to go out of our way and do that a little bit extra for than the parent who just butts heads with us. Um, you know, give us a bit of time, give us a bit of space and if we come to us with, if you disagree with what we say, come to us but also listen to why we say what we say, because it may well be that we've got an important reason for something that we say. Actually, you know what you're saying is not invalid, but it may be that there's a reason we're not going to do what this thing that someone on tiktok has said or you know it's. We go by evidence-based things a lot of the time, and the last one is just talk to your kids.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
39:05
Shocker there, ollie, you go by evidence, you don't go by TikTok.
Olly StewartGuest
Really, I mean that's criminal, I know, but trust me, sometimes yeah, sometimes it's a you'd be surprised at what people can come out with sometimes.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
I wouldn't actually, no, you probably wouldn't, but listeners would be surprised yeah.
Olly StewartGuest
But the last one is also just talk to your kids. Talk to them. You know people don't learn language from sitting there watching an iPad. They might, but it's not great. You can't learn social skills. You know, when I was younger you might have had that kid who was sat in front of a TV all day. They weren't going out exercising and interacting with other people, but they're watching tv. At least on the tv. If you're watching I don't know brick cops, for example, you've got two people communicating things like ipads, the games. You know £2.99 ipad game is not going to have nuanced facial expressions. That teach children things. Yes, they might be able to learn their abcs, but that you can teach them the abc face to face.
39:59
Talk to your children, give them the exposure they need. You know you'll also pick up a lot quicker on your child's needs. If you are talking to your child a lot, you'll realise there's difficulty and you know it might be things like. You know you need to set boundaries with them. At the dinner table. We're not going to have our phones, we're not going to have the TV on, we're just going to sit and chat and it might be that you get your phone out to be like mom. Look at this I saw the other day. That's fine, but don't just be sat there scrolling all around the dinner table. You know, end up like those people in Wally. If you end up like that, nobody talks to each other.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
We don't even allow the phone. We don't allow the phone at the dinner table at my house because you know you need to. It's a, it's a great, it's a great time hear about days and and yeah, and, and I think you know, for for someone like myself who talks too much sometimes I talk too much for my daughter and I need to be quiet and listen to her and let her speak, and so it's also, you know, giving them that space to speak yeah, it is, and there's, and there's so much evidence that shows that.
Olly StewartGuest
You know, we're not like. You know, if you look, even 200 years ago, people would. They come home from work and they would sit and they would chat, and they, they go, they go to the pub, they tell stories like it's all this communication and we're, with the rise of electronics, we're just so drifting away from that. Um, you know, telling stories. We're not. We're not sitting around a campfire and obviously I don't expect people to go around light a fire in the middle of the living room. But and talk about, you know, thor and odin and things like this, like they did back when the vikings were in their long houses. But talk about what did you do at school today? How was it if your child's struggling? Prompt them, give them prompts, explain to them all. Have you thought about telling me why that happened or adding a bit more? You know, just talk to kids. Talk to them, because that is the best way that they will learn to communicate you can also get.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
I don't know. You've seen these.
Olly StewartGuest
41:39
They're story cubes and and you roll the dice and then you can make little stories and there's story cards too.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
It and it's so easy to put in your bag, so when you go out to a restaurant or something like that, you can throw them out, and we've gotten so used to it now that we don't need the cubes or the cards. There's like let's, let's create a story now. Let's, let's make, let's make a story up and she'll start it. Then I'll add to it, and if we have other people with us, well, everyone has a chance to add a little bit to the story. And then it goes in all different, you know crazy places, but you know it's fun?
Olly StewartGuest
Yeah, it is, and it's just, it's human nature to talk, to chat to each other. That's what we, that's why we've evolved to be where we are, is because we communicate with each other so well. And you know, the last 50 years, like that, the communication has just decreased because we're all just doing it on phones and through screens. You know, we're not, we're not actually talking to each other anymore, and that I, you know. I don't know what the evidence base for that is, but personally I think that is probably having a massive increase in the difficulties, you know, if you're taking your kid out for a walk mental health issues if you're taking your kid out for a walk and they're in the pram.
42:41
Don't sit there scrolling on your phone when you're walking through. Talk to your child, point out things, go. Look at the red bus, look at the bluebells, look at the green. You know, give your child this exposure to language and they'll do really well.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Yeah, it doesn't seem like rocket science, but you know we all get so busy and you know, and so caught up in life and getting stuff done. You know, you, just it's it's taking that pause and just realizing. Getting back to basics Really good. Tips Ollie, really really good tips. Thank you very much. No, very good, get us all thinking. Thank you very much for your time today. It's much appreciated.
Olly StewartGuest
It was good, come on, do another one sometime.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
Excellent, sounds good. Thank you, ollie. Thank you for listening. Send Parenting.
Olly StewartGuest
Tribe Excellent Sounds good.
Dr Olivia KesselHost
43:20
Thank you for listening. Send Parenting Tribe. If you're listening in Apple podcast, please rate the show. Just scroll down on the main home screen to the bottom and give a star rating, one through five. Really appreciate your reviews, as it helps the algorithm. Then show the podcast to more parents, wishing you and your family a week full of good in-person communication. Bye.