In my first year of working, I met a young boy who didn’t say very much at all. When I brought him from the classroom to my therapy room, he walked in quietly, sat under the desk and curled himself tightly around his knees. He avoided eye contact. I was a stranger, someone about to work on his greatest challenge, his communication.

For the first few weeks of intervention, I simply sat under the table with him. Slowly, gently, we began to build rapport. Gradually, we moved out from under the desk. We connected, we worked and we grew, together. One of our strongest points of connection was his passion for MasterChef. It became our shared space, a place where therapy goals could live inside something meaningful to him. Years later, he went on to chef school and, despite his learning difficulties, graduated as a pastry chef. By then, our relationship was no longer just therapeutic, focused on communication skills. I was someone who felt incredibly proud of his journey, his growth and his determination and happily visited his patisserie.

A speech-language therapist focuses on far more than speech sounds. When a child feels threatened, anxious or judged, the brain shifts into survival mode. In that state, the parts of the brain responsible for language, thinking and learning become less efficient. Speech-language therapy is often so effective because it intentionally creates a sense of safety, allowing the learning brain to switch back on. Young learners regulate through safe adults before they can fully self-regulate. Speech-language therapists naturally provide predictable routines, warm responsiveness, attuned listening, manageable levels of challenge and frequent experiences of success. Together, these create what neuroscience describes as co-regulation, helping the child’s nervous system settle and become ready to learn.

Speech therapy supports many areas beyond how a child articulates sounds. It may involve developing pragmatic language, or social communication. These are important abilities such as turn-taking, reading social cues, understanding tone of voice, maintaining conversations and participating in groups. These skills are essential for group work, oral presentations and a genuine sense of classroom belonging.

Speech therapy also plays a powerful role in literacy development. Therapists target phonological awareness, decoding foundations, vocabulary depth and comprehension. Reading is built on spoken language. When a child’s preliteracy skills and language foundation are supported, their literacy has room to grow.

Speech-language therapy can help children with many language skills from being able to explain their thinking, answer questions more fully, retell information, organise their written responses and participate in discussions to following complex instructions. With the right language support, many children can finally begin to show what they truly know.

For skills to carry over beyond the therapy room, collaboration is essential. Speech-language therapists actively partner with teachers, coach parents, embed strategies into curriculum tasks and practice goals in real-life contexts. The aim is not perfect speech in a therapy session- the goal is confident, functional communication in everyday life. When a child’s communication improves, participation increases. With this, anxiety often decreases and behaviour improves. Most importantly, peer relationships strengthen and academic access widens. Speech therapy does not just change how children speak. It changes how they experience school and, ultimately, how they experience themselves as learners.

For more info, visit www.bellavista.org.za