Rachel Heaford - Independent Speech and Language Therapist

My passion is my work as an Independent Speech and Language Therapist. I absolutely love the opportunities I get to experience every day to support the individuals, families, and teaching staff I work with. The aim being to target individual needs, increase confidence and skill for the young person to communicate confidently using their own voice, thoughts, ideas, and opinions - meeting their tailored goals.

Supporting parents and carers is a vital role in facilitating these goals, whilst using a child-centred and holistic approach. The aspiration of the young person is at the heart of everything I do and to be part of their journey is always an honour and something I will never take for granted.

My specialist area is Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). I have 14 years of experience working with children and young people who have speech, language, and communication needs. I support individual’s attention and listening, comprehension, expression, speech sounds and social thinking. The impact on the tailored therapy is to increase the individual’s activity levels, participation and their well-being and self-esteem. Working with key adults around the young person and taking a holistic approach is fundamental to my practice and support.