2015 has been a great year at Chatterbugs and we just wanted to say thank you to the Toowoomba community. To everyone who has referred children to us so we could help them, thank you. To everyone who has trusted us with their special children as your speech therapy service provider of choice, thank you. To all the professionals we’re had the pleasure of working with in 2015, thank you. Because of you we are making a difference and helping children in the Toowoomba region to communicate, learn and eat more successfully.

As you are probably already aware we are the largest speech pathology practice in Toowoomba dedicated exclusively to paediatric clinical care. In addition to speech and language skills our team also gets great results for children with literacy (reading/spelling/writing including dyslexia) and feeding difficulties. Here are just a few examples of the outcomes we are achieving:

Here are a few of our highlights for 2015:

• We changed a child’s life every day – in 2015 we helped over 365 children learn to communicate, read and spell, eat and interact with others more successfully. We’re proud of the number of children we help, but more than that we are proud of the individual outcomes we can achieve for each child and their family.
• We recently worked with a 12 month old girl who was having difficulty chewing and after only 3 therapy sessions and her parent attending our “Transforming Picky Eaters into Peaceful Feeders” workshop we are so excited that she is now successfully able to eat a variety of table foods. Her Christmas was so much more enjoyable because of her new-found skills and her parents are no longer feeling “stuck” and report they are now confident in supporting her eating skills to develop.
• A grade 1 student was flagged by his school as more than 12 months behind his peers for reading and they were suggesting he repeat. After only 12 therapy sessions he has been able to dramatically improve his reading, writing and spelling skills to the point where the school has determined that he is able to progress on to grade 2 together with his friends. He is coming along to our literacy intensive therapy sessions over the school holidays so he can continue to progress.
• In the initial consultation for a four year old boy who came to us earlier this year, his family members reported that they struggled to understand more than half of the words he said. After 6 months of regular therapy and lots of home practice he is now able to be understood by everyone – even unfamiliar people. Chatting with extended family members is now possible for this bubbly little fellow.
• A young man aged 17 who has had a stuttering since childhood but never really had any therapy was able to walk out after only one therapy session with one of our staff equipped with two simple strategies that helped him to be more fluent immediately. He is now able to pursue his dream job with more confidence.
• We’ve also assisted a 6 year old girl with a diagnosis of ASD level 2 with significant anxiety and verbal dyspraxia. By working together with the school and paediatrician we’ve been able to educate them to understand that the child is not intellectually impaired but rather there is a significant non-verbal and verbal IQ gap which indicates that it is her communication difficulties that are the primary concern whilst also supporting her mother in making sense of the reports and information from various professionals involved in her daughter’s care. Following regular treatment she is now able to understand and answer higher-level questions, pronounce more speech sounds accurately and interact more successfully with others.

None of these outcomes have been achieved by accident. We are constantly updating our skills, supporting each other and striving for excellence in everything we do. We are always trying to better serve our clients, education, allied health and medical professional colleagues and would love to hear from you what you like and how we can do better. So if you have some feedback for us about what we are doing well or what we could do better we would love to hear from you Email: chatterbugs@gmail.com or phone: 1300 66 1945

THANK YOU! We look forward to delivering even better outcomes in 2016.