Banter Speech & Language

Sydney speech pathologists helping adults and children speak for themselves.

David Kinnane

The Story Wizards’ Master Story Builder

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Humans are wired to tell stories. But some children struggle to understand or narrate stories, including many children with developmental language and other learning disorders, and some children who are learning English as a second language.

This resource is designed to support children to learn the fundamentals of story-telling, with evidence-based scaffolds, scripted modelling, and idea prompts to make up an unlimited number of stories.

To help children understand and tell stories we start with an evidence-based recipe to teach students the “macrostructure” of good stories: Our Story Builder.

We explicitly model story telling before jumping into it. Many children with language and learning delays struggle with some of the jargon academics use when discussing stories – orientation, complication, etc. We’ve tried to translate the jargon into simple language to help children understand.

Fundamentally, this resource is all about learning by doing.  Many children (and adults) fear the blank page. So we have included lots of story building elements and suggestions to get (and keep) going. Suitable for one-to-one, small group and whole class work, this resource is a versatile tool for every teacher and therapist’s toolbox.

DOWNLOAD THE STORY WIZARDS’ MASTER STORY BUILDER

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

Parents of teenagers aged 13 – 15 years: 10 ideas to increase participation and communication skills

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  1. Independence: Support your teenager to participate in activities without direct parents/carers supervision (e.g. public transport, movies, bowling, Laser Tag, video arcade, park days).
  2. Decision-making: Encourage teenagers to make hard decisions and trade-offs (e.g. about school subjects, assignments topics, extra-curricular activities and social groups).
  3. High expectations, more responsibility: ‘Raise the bar’ in what you expect (using support where needed), e.g. with home chores, self-study, sports, classroom tasks, community services to others.
  4. Adjust family relationships: Respect your teenager’s natural desire for more independence, encourage friendships with siblings and extended family members, address concerns that may hinder positive family relationships
  5. Re-frame support: Recast ‘babysitter’ supports to age-appropriate, informal oversight, opinion sharing and mentoring.
  6. Encourage friendships: e.g. peers they enjoy spending unstructured time with, and interest-based groups (e.g. games, sports, movies, music).
  7. Social/recreational activities: Keep teenagers busy with local sports (soccer, football, netball), before- and after-school programs, and community groups (e.g. computer and technology clubs, gaming clubs, dance troupes).
  8. Professional support: If required, access services and programs to target specific goals that are functional and important to your teenager (e.g. with talking to new people, sending messages/texts to friends, posting on forums, social media, and independent shopping).
  9. Stay positive: Understand your teenager’s strengths, abilities and needs; encourage your teenager to use and extend their skills, and to persevere through challenges, and connect with networks/families who share similar needs.
  10. Self-care: The teenage years can be challenging! Don’t be shy in seeking practical, emotional, counselling, and care support when required. Make time to have your own life!

Key source: National Disability Insurance Scheme (2014). Report of the Independent Advisory Council to the National Disability Insurance Scheme: Reasonable and Necessary Support across the Lifespan: An Ordinary Life for People with Disability. Examples our own.

Related infographics:

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

Getting ready to read at big school: a free guide for families with preschoolers

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Too many preschoolers start school without the speech and pre-reading skills needed to thrive in Kindergarten. But which skills matter the most?

In this free guide, we seek to answer this question by summarising the evidence in Plain English.

We cover:

  • typical speech development, consonant acquisition milestones, and error patterns;
  • the links between unclear speech and later reading difficulties;
  • foundational pre-reading skills (like phonological awareness and print awareness);
  • how to teach the alphabet to your child;
  • how to teach children to read;
  • the benefits of shared reading and audiobooks; and
  • school readiness communication skills.  

This family guide focuses on helping preschoolers to get ready to read at big school.

Well-developed language skills – listening and talking skills – are also vital for school readiness. You can read more about how to help your preschooler’s oral language development in our free developmental language guide for families. It contains lots of practical strategies and tips about the importance of play, language stimulation techniques. 

We hope you find these resources helpful.

Download it below.

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

New decodable Scatter-Slayer Adventure: The Nervous Furnace Workers’ Well-Earned Liberation

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We can’t think of a better way to work on <er ir ur wor> and <ear> than with a silly tale about an evil surfboard and a bunch of nervous serfs!

Our 8th and latest decodable reader in our Scatter-Slayer Adventure series focusing on the extended code and reading fluency. 

download now

Watch a preview:

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day: our free DLD guide for families

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Today is Developmental Language Disorder (‘DLD’) Awareness Day.

DLD is common. But it is not well understood.

It’s hard to find evidence-based information that is easy to read. We’ve written a lot about DLD. But the information on our website wasn’t organised very well.

So, we put together 64 of our articles and created a free guide for children, adolescents, adults and families affected by DLD.

Simply look for a topic that is interesting to you, and click on it to get to the article. We hope you like our DLD Guide for Families!

If you’d like a free PDF copy of the guide, sign up below.

Watch our video for more information:

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

Not about ‘fixing’: using the ‘F-Word Framework’ to support children with communication disorders and their families

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The ‘medical model’ of communication disorders focuses on ‘fixing’ children through assessment, diagnosis, and ‘treatment’. But children with communication disorders aren’t ‘sick’ or ‘broken’. 

A modern approach to health is the World Health Organization’s 2001 International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), which shows that health is determined by complex interactions between body functions and structures, activities and participation, and environmental and personal factors.

But the ICF can be hard to apply in practice. An adaptation is to consider six ‘F‐words’:

  • Function: Thinking hard about what children do; their activities and participation; capacity and performance. Focusing on achievement of the activity – not whether it is done ‘normally’. Encouraging practice of the function without regard to how ‘nicely’ it is achieved.
  • Family: The essential environment for most children. Knowing parents and siblings bring talents and strengths and are dealing with their own physical and mental challenges and concerns. Involving the wider family, e.g. grandparents. Helping families to feel competent. Providing respect and continuity of care; enabling informed decision-making and partnership. 
  • Fitness: Promoting children’s physical fitness and recreation, whether in ‘therapy’ or not. 
  • Fun: Asking children what they enjoy doing, what do they want to do, and how they can be more involved in meaningful life situations. Thinking about formal (structured) and informal (free‐range) activities; done alone, or with others. Helping children to do the things they want to, and not worrying about what’s ‘normal’. Using purposeful activities to build children’s confidence, competence, sense of achievement, and capacity. 
  • Friends: Encouraging social development and inclusion. Focusing on quality relationships (not the quantity of acquaintances). Supporting peer connections and involvement in meaningful group activities. 
  • Future: What child ‘development’ is all about! Thinking positively, right from the start; and encouraging families to do so as well. Not deciding what is impossible. 

The F-words are connected: e.g. increasing a child’s (self‐identified, meaningful) participation might affect the scope and intensity of activities, and lead to changes in body functions and communication skills. Participating in a desired sport program, for example, might increase physical/social capacities and performance, including in the social use of language.

The F-Word framework is an appealing way for speech pathologists to think beyond ‘fixing’ kids, and to incorporate ICF concepts into their practices and relationships with clients and their families.

Key sources:

(1) Rosenbaum, P.  and Gorter, J.W. (2011). The ‘F‐words’ in childhood disability: I swear this is how we should think! Child: Care, Health and Development, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2214.2011.01338.x 

(2) Cunningham, B.J., Thomas-Stonell, N., and Rosenbaum, P. (2020). Assessing communicative participation in preschool children with the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six: a scoping review, Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, DOI: 10.1111/dmcn.14665

Related articles:

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.