Fremantle Speech Pathology

These are the key findings from the DLD Hypothetical that we help on September 17th with Professor Courtenay Norbury at the helm.

This is the context she is dealing with in England......Children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) throughout England are set to benefit from earlier, more consistent specialist support.

Professor Courtenay Norbury is assisting to shape evidence-based standards.

From September 2026, specialists will work alongside schools to identify needs and provide support.

We went through the process of how to design a trial for this support, and navigated some difficult but important questions.....This is what we settled on!

Designing a DLD intervention trial
• Evidence gap: Few SLT-led trials are rigorous. A new trial must be scalable and meaningful to families.
• Outcomes: Vocabulary is easy to measure but may not matter most. The idea was a taught language skill as the primary outcome, then checking flow-on effects on participation and wellbeing.
• Participation: Classroom supports could be both goal and method. Attendance was a possible measure.
• Tiered support: Universal to specialist levels, with direct access to specialist help when needed.
• Consistency vs tailoring: A consistent set of responses to individual needs may achieve both. Existing programmes may help high-need children only modestly.
• Inclusion (unresolved): Several favoured including ADHD. Norbury preferred excluding autistic children initially.
• Age (unresolved): Adolescent evidence is scarce.
• Key point: Success means real-world delivery and meaningful life impact, not just task gains.
• Agreed: Ages 8–10, a language focus, and a school-based model with SPs supporting educators.
• Why 8–10: Rising literacy demands and visible difficulties, with scope for explicit language teaching.
• Measures: Primary is a language measure matched to the intervention. Secondary is participation and wellbeing, with no agreed measures.
• Identification: Many options were raised, none agreed. Unassessed children are hard to find.
• School factors: Leadership, staff commitment and competing programmes affect delivery and sustainability.
• SP role: Assess, design, coach, monitor, and provide specialist intervention.
• Implementation: Needs ongoing coaching rather than one-off training, balanced against feasibility.
• Still open: Eligibility, participation measures, dosage and trial length.

Looking for an intensive course to boost your child's skills in phonics, writing or essay writing? We still have spaces available in our upcoming Holiday Groups! Visit our website to see more information and book online.
Bookings will close on Thursday the 24th of September. Groups are subject to numbers.
🌐 https://www.freospeech.com.au/holidaylearning

Courtenay Norbury never fails to deliver, and Thursday night was no exception.

We were privileged to have Courtenay lead us through The DLD Hypothetical, where we were given this challenge.....$5 million, 500 school-aged children with DLD and the task of designing a landmark language-intervention trial.

Which aspects of language should we prioritise?
Which interventions are our best bets?
Who should be included?
How would age and individual profiles influence the approach?
How would we know whether the intervention had truly worked?

Then came the twist: improving language scores is important, but what else must change if children with DLD are to participate, learn and thrive in mainstream classrooms?

Courtenay challenged our assumptions, drew us back to the evidence and encouraged us to think differently about intervention, assessment and inclusion.

Thank you to Courtenay and to everyone who contributed so thoughtfully and enthusiastically.

It was a stimulating evening filled with questions, debate, laughter and plenty of ideas to take forward +++++pizza, w**e, cake and a lolly salad.

As one participant said, "What a great night it was last night discussing difficult things with a room full of clever people!"

In our Essay Writing group, students will learn how to analyse the language and conventions within written texts and formulate their ideas into structured and impactful essays.
The course has been designed for Years 10, 11 & 12 students who would benefit from explicit instruction and additional support to analyse texts and construct essays.
Grace is running the course in the Term 3 school holidays and brings her knowledge about language, themes and text analysis while supporting students to break down concepts and ideas, find appropriate evidence and structure their written responses.

🔗 Book via our website or by using this link: https://fremantle-speech-pathology-services.au1.cliniko.com/bookings?practitioner_id=1088891833691407955&appointment_type_id=555105

You only need to book on day one of the course.

🌐 Find out more info about all our groups via our website: https://www.freospeech.com.au/holidaylearning

Our Years 4, 5 & 6 Holiday Narrative Writing Group supports students to discover how to create fun characters, exciting adventures, and endings that tie everything together. They will get to share their ideas, play with language, and learn simple tricks to make their writing shine.
Kellie is running the group in October and brings her previous experience as an upper primary school teacher to support students to develop their writing skills. Students will be shown how to build a character and a setting, plan and write exciting stories and expand on their vocabulary and sentences.
The course is 2.5 hours per day, for 4 days.

🔗 Book via our website or use this link:
https://fremantle-speech-pathology-services.au1.cliniko.com/bookings?practitioner_id=1846194875410679401&appointment_type_id=582360

You only need to book on day one of the course.
🌐 Find out more info about all our groups via our website: https://www.freospeech.com.au/holidaylearning

Our Early Phonics Holiday Group is all about having fun while learning the building blocks of reading and spelling. Through games and hands-on activities, children will explore letter-sound connections, blending sounds to make words, and breaking words up into individual sounds.
This course is designed for students in Pre-Primary and Year 1 and Charlotte will be running the course in the upcoming October holidays!
The course is 1.5 hours per day, for 4 days total.

🔗Book online via this link: https://fremantle-speech-pathology-services.au1.cliniko.com/bookings?practitioner_id=1846193206589392488&appointment_type_id=570219

You only need to book on day one of the course.
🌐 For further information or to view our other groups, please visit our website: https://www.freospeech.com.au/holidaylearning

The video recording of, "Using a Narrative Lens to Analyse and Teach Oral Language" is now available for purchase on our website. https://www.freospeech.com.au/shop

There are prices for individuals as well as groups + the accompanying handout can also be downloaded.

This workshop explores how a narrative context can be used to identify developmental patterns in kindergarten children’s language and inform the explicit teaching of oral language.

Drawing on large-scale kindergarten narrative data from the "Teapot Swap" project, the workshop examines developmental growth across both macrostructure and microstructure, highlighting how children’s narrative language develops over time.

The workshop also explores the emerging role of AI in narrative analysis, demonstrating how AI platforms can support clinicians and educators to:
analyse oral and written narrative samples,
identify developmental trends in kindy children's language,
generate teaching targets, and
improve efficiency in clinical and educational settings.
Importantly, the workshop also considers the strengths, limitations and reliability of AI-assisted narrative analysis, with a focus on how AI can be used thoughtfully alongside professional judgement.

Fremantle Speech Pathology Online Store Browse and shop resources and tools for budding speech pathologists and professionals alike.

It is Speech Pathology week!

This year's theme is "Communication Creates Possibility".

Across the lifespan, the ability to communicate is vital for participation, advocacy and independence. Speech pathologists have a wide scope of practice, with therapy and goals depending on the individual, their abilities and their priorities.

Communication creates possibility to...
💬 learn
💬 play
💬 thrive
💬 understand others
💬 express ourselves
💬 access information
💬 develop friendships and social connections
and so much more!

When you ask your students to pose for a photo capturing the wonderful learning context we have all been sharing - and they can only hold that pose for so long.....!

A great session around planning language goals directly from a narrative sample....we analysed language behaviours, established clinical hypotheses, selected language targets, and reflected upon the whole process......!

DEVELOPMENTAL LANGUAGE DISORDER AWARENESS DAY

COMMUNITY BBQ & PICNIC

Please SAVE THE DATE.....!

Friday 16th October 2026

Cost: FREE

Time: 4.30pm - 6.30pm

Place: Burswood Park

Donate • Burswood DLD Awareness Day Family Picnic & BBQ Burswood DLD Awareness Day Family Picnic & BBQ : Register today to support Burswood DLD Awareness Day Family Picnic & BBQ