Annette McLaren,
Independent Speech and Language Therapist
Therapy Services
Communication happens every minute of every day. Therefore, it is important for me to work alongside others who know your child best in order to maximise his/her potential. I have years of experience of coaching parents and other care givers in ways to promote and enable the child to communicate successfully.
I offer a range of assessment and therapy sessions within the familiar environments of home, school or nursery.
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Assessment
Assessment and reviews can take various formats depending on the current needs of the child and/or requirements of the assessment report. Please see fees for families for further details of prices of assessment sessions and report writing.
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Therapy
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My aim is to discuss the best possible package to meet the individual needs of each family. I prefer to work in blocks of therapy as this gives us a timeframe to achieve goals and reflect on progress to plan next steps. After each block we will discuss if another block of therapy is required or whether the child would benefit from a short therapy break to consolidate skills. I charge families sessional fees rather than an hourly rate therefore, each visit will last between 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the attention of the child and will include indirect liaison with relevant caregivers.
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Therapy Packages
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The following packages are payable in advance at the normal session rate with a discount for a block of 6 or 8 sessions. Face-to-face sessions may take place in the clinic, own home, nursery setting or a mixture of all settings. Please see fees for families for details of costs. NB I will agree travel costs in advance and all sessions in a block must be used up within a 4 month period.
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Package 1: Introduction of PECS (Please see PECS info​ for more details)
If appropriate to the needs of your child, this specialist package is generally booked as an intensive block of 8 sessions over 5/6 weeks. The package also includes bespoke laminated pictures and a PECS book. Ideally 2 adults should be present to work with the child during the introduction of this therapy approach. Once the child has successfully achieved the basics of this approach, therapy package 2 may be offered to continue working on PECS on a weekly or fortnightly basis.
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Package 2: Regular/ ongoing therapy
This is generally booked as a block of 6 discounted sessions within my clinic room in Blairgowrie and works well as either 6 weekly sessions or 6 fortnightly sessions. However, some home visits or nursery visits may also be arranged if appropriate (this will incur additional travel costs).
NB Monthly therapy visits are not available at a discounted rate so will be invoiced at the sessional rate prior to each visit.
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Package 3: Online parent coaching therapy
This is payable in advance at the normal session rate with a discount for a block of 6 sessions. The advantages of this package for some families is the ease of accessing therapy advice via indirect coaching methods at a time that suits both without the child being physically present. The format tends to work best if parents send video clips of their child in advance, which we can then watch together and analyse how the child is responding and communicating. Then I can coach parents to try therapy techniques to encourage their child's communication skills. This is particularly beneficial for children who are pre-verbal or at the early stages of language development.
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Package 4: Combination
A block of therapy, which is a combination of 50% online sessions and 50% face-to-face sessions can also be offered. For example, I may visit the child at nursery for 3 sessions and do some parent coaching for 3 evening video sessions. This is particularly beneficial for children who are already using PECS or other augmentative communication systems such as signing or those who are at the early stages of language development.
Alternatively, I may alternate between face-to-face clinic sessions and teletherapy sessions with the child in the home / nursery setting to ensure that therapy targets are kept up to date in all settings.
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