Speech and Language Therapy
Jean de Wet
Speech and Language Therapist
I am an experienced Speech and Language Therapist offering services to
children in the Tauranga area. My practice, Words, is based in Omokoroa and
Tauranga.
I qualified with a BSc Logopaedics from the University of Cape Town in
1990. Since then, I have helped hundreds of children develop and grow their
communication and literacy skills. I have worked in a wide range of
settings – first in South Africa, then the United Kingdom, and then with
the New Zealand Ministry of Education for 18 years from 1997 to 2015.
I am Hanen-trained and certified to deliver It Takes Two to Talk,
More Than Words and the Learning Language and Loving It
and Teacher Talk programmes.
I am trained in the Lidcombe approach to help young children who
stutter, and the Camperdown programme for adult and adolescent stutterers.
Services
I can assess and help children with a range of difficulties
affecting their communication skills:
- Speech clarity – whether it is immature speech sound development, a
speech sound disorder or Childhood Apraxia of Speech, I have a wealth
of experience in helping children to be able to talk clearly and make
themselves understood.
- Receptive and expressive language – this includes vocabulary and
grammatical development, and the ability to use and understand language
to function successfully and interact with others.
- Social communication skills – interacting and communicating with
others successfully involves more than talking and understanding
language. I offer help individually or in groups for children to assist
with developing social communication skills.
- Phonological awareness – awareness of the sound structure of words is
an important predictor of reading ability. I can help pre-school children
develop phonological awareness skills, and work with school-age children
who are experiencing difficulties with literacy acquisition to assist
with this vital building block for literacy.
- Stuttering – very young children usually respond well to a parent-led
approach which I can implement with you. Older children may need to learn
to control their stuttering and build confidence in their speech
ability.
Please contact me to discuss any concerns you
may have about your child’s communication skills and literacy development,
and how I can help.