Join our Speech Community
Communication Matters
As Therapy Matters celebrates 30 amazing years of impactful speech therapy services, we invite you to become part of our Communication Matters community. Therapy Matters’ mission has always been to empower children and families through effective communication, ensuring every child has a voice.
This is more than just a milestone; it’s an opportunity for you to connect, learn, and grow alongside us in our mission to empower children and families through better communication.
From our beginnings as the first private speech pathology clinic in the Tweed region in 1995, we have supported over 9,000 clients, expanding our services to include group programs, workshops, and community advocacy.
Looking ahead, we are focused on providing the most effective support for children and families within our community. We will continue to create and innovate our services to meet the evolving needs of our clients. We envision a nurturing environment where every child is seen, supported and valued.
Join us on this journey! Access blogs, newsletters, free resources to support your child at home, and stay updated on upcoming events and workshops.
Please fill out the form below to join our community. Together, let’s continue making a difference!
Parent Resources & Events
Helpful tools and resources designed by our speech pathologists to help build your child’s communication skills.
Practical parent education sessions and workshops for the community. Our Seasonal Steps Parent Education Sessions are held once a term on a Monday night with in-person and on-line options. Our most popular community workshops are our Key Word Sign Workshops designed to ensure that our local community is supportive and valuing of people that communicate through the us of key word signs.
Learn some Key Word Signs
- Key Word Sign is a strategy to support people with communication difficulties understand and share their messages with others. Signs are added to key spoken words in a message. Signs are borrowed from Auslan. Therapy Matters runs workshops in Key Word Sign each term.
- Boogie to our Therapy Matters 30th Anniversary Song & learn signs to go with the lyrics. Learn signs for make, difference & time. Have fun & follow along with a video by clicking here.
Preschooler Speech Check
- Use this tool to see if your preschooler needs to see a speech pathologist for unclear speech.
- Print the resource and have your preschooler name the pictures for their age and younger
- Tick the sounds they can say and cross the ones they can.
- See how your child’s pattern matches with what is expected for their age.
- If any letters crossed are at their age level or younger, consider referral to a speech pathologist particularly if others can’t understand your child. As a guide, an unfamiliar listener should be able to understand: your 3-year-old 75% of the time and your 4-year-old 100% of the time.
Understanding Neurodivergent Friends
- Your child maybe seeking to understand a friend in their class who is neurodivergent. To help them better understand and support their peer, focus on explaining that everyone’s brain works differently and that’s okay. Emphasize that differences in how people learn, communicate or behave don’t make them less worthy or able. Encourage empathy, patience, curiosity and understanding. Invite them to look for strengths and areas of expertise in their peers.
- This helpful tip sheet aims to build neurodiverse affirming, inclusive spaces where everyone is understood, supported and valued.
