Speech and Language Therapy and being a SEND Sibling: Nicole Bateman chats with Karen Massey

In this episode of "Conversations with a SEND Mum," host Nicole Bateman engages in a rich conversation with Karen Massey, a seasoned speech and language therapist and the owner of All About Speech Therapy and The Sensory Speech Box. Together, they explore the intricate world of speech and language development and delve into the unique perspective of being a SEND sibling.

Episode Highlights:

• Speech and Language Development: Karen Massey shares her expertise as a speech and language therapist, unraveling the intricacies of speech and language development in children. The conversation provides valuable insights into milestones, challenges, and the importance of early intervention.
• SEND Sibling Perspective: The dialogue takes a poignant turn as Karen, also a SEND sibling herself, offers a unique perspective on growing up with a brother with special educational needs and disabilities. They discuss the impact on family dynamics, relationships, and the role of understanding and support.

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Transcript

Nicole Bateman: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Conversations with a Send Mum with me, Nicole Bateman, your host. It is sponsored by the Supersensory Squad, who support kids in understanding the eight sensory system using eight amazing penguins. And today I am talking to Karen Massey, who is the owner of All About Speech Therapy and the Sensory Speech Box. So Karen, welcome. Thank you so much, Nicole. I'm absolutely thrilled to be here with you today. Yeah, good to chat with you. So can you just, first of all, explain your connection with special educational needs, disabilities and what you do, please? Absolutely. So the first thing, like, Huge disclaimer and Nicole and I were just talking about this before we started recording this episode, is I'm not a SEND mum but I do have a lot of connections with the SEND world. I'm a trained children's speech therapist, hence my businesses but I'm also a SEND sibling so I grew up in a family where one of my siblings has identified additional needs, and I'm an auntie to some fabulous other people who also have identified SEND. And I Naturally have spent a lot of time in the company of families at going through their own scent journey. So I feel like I've got a lot of connection, a lot of a lot of understanding and knowledge and, and that, that empathy that comes from spending time with, and I'm very passionate about supporting scent. Send families children with additional needs and I hope that that can shine through. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that because I think it's important and you are a professional who cares otherwise I wouldn't have invited you on this podcast. So, there's good to understand, and hopefully you'll share some tips and things like that with us today. So thank you for sharing. So can you, can you kind of just explain a little bit about what, what you do as a speech and language therapist, first of all, what's your role? So, yes, in my role, as a speech and language therapist, we cover so many different areas. There's lots of different specialisms that people can go into. So, I've evolved over time to really specialise in helping children who don't yet have their voice. Quite literally, don't have their voice, you know, their spoken voice. Also often don't really have a recognized system to communicate and put across their thoughts, their ideas, their wants, their needs, their feelings, and all of the things inside us that we feel and they really don't have that, that way of expressing themselves clearly, and it can lead to a lot of frustration. So I specialize in supporting those children to discover their voices. Sometimes that's. through different types of communication. We work with symbols, signing apps these days. There's so many different ways that we can express ourselves. But often along the way we also discover their spoken voice as well, which is, which is. Extremely special to me when we hear that for the first time. Yeah, absolutely. And, so you specialize, yeah, in finding voices, which is great. What other things do people on your team, what other things do speech and language, I've personally met with speech and language therapists for my son who has, his voice but he struggles sometimes with things like Inference and all of those kind of things, the complexities of language as well. So we, yeah, we, we work through a number of different levels. So we will support children who are wanting to make connections with others. So wanting to interact with others and perhaps navigating social situations, social interactions and we will support them and equip other people as well with methods. to help reach out to them and make those connections and interactions. We'll support children to understand and process what's going on around them. So we might help by simplifying the language in the environment. We might scaffold using visual support. We might help to structure what's going on through, again, through our visual aids that we might implement. We might support children to understand more complex language through breaking down to a level where they, they can process it. More easily and teaching new concepts, new vocabulary will help children to express themselves more fully. So some of the children we meet are verbal, but they struggle to put together more complex sentence structures. They might communicate for certain reasons, but not realize that they can communicate for all sorts of different reasons. And so we'll put steps in place to support them and guide them and give them the skills to express. And then what's often the kind of icing on the cake or the tip of the iceberg when it comes to speech and language is speech clarity. So for some children, they've got all the ideas and they desperately try to communicate that verbally, but their speech sounds themselves are not clear. So we will help fine tune that clarity. as well. And, and there are so many other things. We, we don't as a team even touch the surface when it comes to speech therapy. So, other children will, will struggle because of a stammer or a stutter and other children will struggle with their voice quality. And some children will have no problems physically with their speech and language, but anxiety gets in the way and we get what's known as selective mutism. So there's other areas that as a team, we don't. Specialise in supporting, but you might want to seek out the advice and help from a speech therapist. Yeah, thank you for that. That's, that's loads of things, isn't it, that you, that you help with. So for, for parents that may be listening right now, what are some tips that You can give, I know it's quite a wide question because it depends on where they are in the journey and everything like that, but any top tips for any parents who are maybe concerned with language development and things like that, where would they go? What could they do at home to help and things like that? Yeah, so first of all, I'd say gaining an understanding of what your child's level is at right now is really useful. So working out what your child can do. Making sure that you're aware of what they can do, what the positives are in their development. So that you've got that to focus on and build on. That's really, really important. And then knowing what the next steps might be. So if they could make a little bit more progress. in the area that you're noticing they're struggling, what would that look like? What would those next steps look like? And then you've got something really concrete to aim for. And also when you're asking for help, when you're going out, maybe depending on the age, whether it's a health visitor or whether it's Senko at the nursery or the school or whether you've got that opportunity to speak to a speech and language professional, you've got a really specific question to ask, you know, I've really loved for. to be able to do this, this as their next step. How can we, how can we help them to achieve it? And then hopefully you'll get a really specific response as well. What's nice about the majority of. communication needs is that there are usually techniques that can be woven into your everyday routines. More often than not, you don't have to find extra time that you don't have, loads of resources that you haven't yet got. Usually, there are things that can be tweaked within Things that you're doing every day, so that there's lots of repetition and that it can be quite easy to sneak speech therapy in, actually. There's some, some areas that are quite tricky to do that with and, and where you might, you might need those extra one to one supports. But for a lot of it, it's, it's surprising how much progress you could actually make at home. Just knowing one or two little things to change. Oh, that's excellent to hear. And, and yeah, that learning through play, that linking in little strategies and things like that is, is great, isn't it? That's, I mean, that's what myself and my business partner, Kate do with the Super Sensory Squad through play. And I know, you know, your sensory speech box that, you know, tell us a little bit about that. Is that for parents to kind of implement? Yeah, we put together a box of stuff. So it's it's designed. It's like having a speech therapist and a therapy session and lots of therapy sessions really all packaged into one little neat box. And the box itself is quite multi sensory. So it's quite tactile and and and. Often people get stuck just out of the box without even opening it up and seeing what's inside because it draws your attention and then inside we've got activities. We've got resources We wanted to put everything inside that one box so that you've not got To then say, Oh, but I need to go and get there. So we need to go and find this. Or where do I, where do I search? What do I need to download? You know, where, where can I find Google searches and all of that? We wanted it accessible but we wanted it to be quite free flow and non, non prescriptive as well. So what's in the box, it's, it's play activities, really. Things that are generally just fun for children to interact with and do. So that it doesn't seem like work. And it's a box that they can open and close whenever they want. So it's there, accessible. And it's not rocket science. So, I think if you open one of our boxes, you might be surprised by what we've put in there. But everything is in there that we would do within a structured speech therapy session. So we know that it works. Yeah. It sounds great. And it sounds like the easy button to, have it all in together, which is what we need as parents, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Cause we're, we're parents and we've, we've kind of designed it and we're, we're coming at it from that angle of way. We are that parent who doesn't want to be given extra things. You just don't want to do extra homework, extra things you've got to do. And if you don't do it, you feel guilty because you've not done it and you've not made time to do it. And it's at the bottom of your to do list. So we're trying to make things as easy and accessible as we can. Excellent. That's, that's what we want, isn't it? And. I'd like to, you know, kind of switch tact a little bit right now because I want to touch in on siblings, because that is something that for me I often think and I feel guilty because There's certain things I need to do for my son, and my daughter is absolutely amazing as well as my son, both of them are amazing. But I expect certain things, maybe, sometimes, more of her, because if my son has had a seizure, I'm like, right, I can't deal with her then, I need her to kind of just get changed, or do whatever, while I then deal with this. So Sometimes I feel that guilt for sibling. And I just would love to hear your perspective as, as a sibling. Yeah. I'd say that genuinely and I grew up not knowing about my, so it's my brother and I, I grew up not, not knowing about. the nature of any of his needs because he, the majority of his needs were not really identified as a child. So he kind of came to know and understand himself as a, as an adult. But nonetheless, the needs were there and I don't know that it really was that big a deal to me. In all honesty, it just was part of life and this is how things are. And I think as an adult now reflecting and I just want the same things that my parents want for him as well. I think as being a sibling of somebody who has got additional needs, it gives you Sets of qualities that perhaps other people don't have and there isn't any resentment at all. It just makes me want to go that next level and be of some kind of support and help too. If anything I feel More empathy for my parents and kind of the additional effort and anxieties that they've had to go through in their position. Cause I'm a mom and I feel fortunate at times that we're not dealing with extra. Things, we're going through all of the, all of the stresses and challenges that come with being a parent, but I don't feel that we've got that next level. We've not got those things on top and knowing that my parents have always had those extra things to worry about. Yeah, I'd say from my experience. Don't, don't think about that too much and don't be hard on yourself. Your son's needs at that time are what comes first. And I'm sure that even if she's not able to express it now, if you asked her when she's older, looking back, what was, what was going through her head, she would be thinking of him first as well. And would want to be doing that. It's just, just the way it is, I think. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for that. It's yeah, she is so caring and loving and has that understanding. That a four year old, for example, a lot of four year olds wouldn't have understanding that she has and you see that actually when she interacts with other kids as well, and that level, like you said, you know, that empathy and that love, and I'm sure she's going to go on, my daughter, and just do amazing things to support other people in a kind of caring role because it's, She, she is very caring and loving wants to know that he's okay. So, so yeah, it's good to hear because, you know, as mums generally, we do sometimes just question things, don't we? We put that guilt on us. Yeah, absolutely. I'd say just to add to that is that there will be things, there will possibly be things that she's going through in terms of, you know, internally thoughts and, and, and worries. And I think having an outlet and a space and perhaps. Connections with other people who she can share those thoughts and feelings with at times where perhaps. You're not the most logical person for her to do that with or she doesn't want to add to what you're going through. So where there are, you know, sibling support groups, I think they're amazing. Where siblings can just go and be themselves and just have fun and not worry about their brother or their sister. Or have people who can understand what they're going through if they need that space to talk. I think that's A really important thing too. And I think it's great when I see organizations set up those. Facilities. Yeah. Definitely. We've got a local one, My Time Young Carers, I know there's Sibs UK and there's lots of great charities, isn't there? So definitely connect with them and and have that experience and share with other people who get that and have fun as well, just without those extra additional worries. And cause you can definitely see that she does, even though she's young, she, she does worry about him and it's trying to. Yeah, give that space is a great tip. So thank you for that. So as we close, is there anything that you'd like to share with? The listeners send parents listening to encourage them and inspire them to end. Yeah, a couple of things. A parent said to me about help. You often will ask for help and this parent said they had received so many people coming to offer help or to provide help that wasn't helpful. So my message to other professionals who are working with Send, Send Moms, Send Parents, who, who are asking for help is to listen, but really listen to what that help really looks like. What is it that they're asking for help for? What, what is it really that's going to be helpful? Not just what can I provide? What am I here to offer? What support would I like to Add to this situation. Genuinely listen. And if you are that mom or that parent who needs help, but is not receiving the right kind of offers, the help that's being offered isn't helpful. Don't stop speaking up and challenge people who come to offer that help to listen, just listen to you and. Explain exactly what it's, that will help you. I think there's a tendency for us to put thing people into boxes and pigeonhole our help and, and put together packages of care that end up being so generic that we miss the point and help is wasted because it's not the right kind of help. And my final thing, sorry to take up all the time, is that it's good. There's always hope as well. So help and hope. Hope that just because things aren't where you want them to be right now doesn't mean that there won't be a time in the future where things will fall into place. And if it's about your child and what they're able to do, and how they're able to communicate, is that there's no cut off point where they're not going to make progress. So as a therapist, working with children with the most challenging and complex of needs, we've seen breakthroughs in much older children, you know, teenagers, where everybody thought a long time ago, they're not going to be able to find their voice now because it's not happened. So I'd say hang on to those feelings of hope and you know, things can, things can happen. Yeah. Love that. Thank you. I love that. When you said the hope, and then, you know, just because it's not how it is now, it doesn't mean it's, it's not going to happen. That made me tear up a little bit because, yeah, because of, you know, right now we're waiting for an EHCP, we're fighting, we're doing all that. We're right in the thick of it. And yeah, you've got to hold on to that hope, haven't you? And there are professionals that care, like Karen and there are others. So definitely, yeah, ask, keep asking for the specific help that you need. Yeah, thank you. So, if people want to connect with you where can they find you? What's the best place to connect? So yeah, you can connect on most of the socials. So we're Facebook, Instagram. Twitter. I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter. So I'm Karen Massey, and then if you search all about speech therapy or sensory speech box yeah, you'll find us. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us and giving us tips. So really, really appreciate you coming on. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Remember that there is the Patreon community, conversations with the Send Mum pod that you can join. There's different resources from a variety of different guests and also from the Super Sensory Squad, a communication diary and advocation kind of a little leaflet as well. So do go and join. We'll have monthly Zoom meetings so we can just chat because sometimes it's really good. To just chat through different things with people who get it. So we'll see you next week, every Wednesday episode drops and I will see you next time.