Areas of Practice

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 Speech sound errors are a normal part of development for many young children. However, some children continue to have difficulty using certain sounds or speech patterns beyond the expected age, which can make their speech harder for others to understand.

Speech pathology support may be helpful if your child is difficult to understand, leaves sounds out, swaps sounds for others, has unclear speech, or becomes frustrated when others do not understand them.

Tennille has experience supporting children with a range of speech sound difficulties, including articulation errors, phonological delays and disorders, childhood apraxia of speech, and speech clarity concerns associated with hearing loss.

Therapy is tailored to your child’s individual needs and may include play-based practice, motor-speech approaches, home practice activities and support for carrying new sounds into everyday communication.

 Language and communication include the way children understand and use words, sentences, gestures, signs, visuals and other forms of communication to share messages and connect with others.

Your child may benefit from speech pathology support if they find it difficult to follow instructions, understand questions, learn new words, put sentences together, tell stories, join conversations or express their needs and ideas clearly.

Support may focus on receptive language, expressive language, social communication and multimodal communication. This can include spoken language, gestures, key word sign, visual supports or Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), including high-tech communication devices where appropriate.

Tennille provides individualised, practical and play-based therapy programs to support children’s communication across home, preschool, school and everyday routines.

 The first few years of life are an important time for communication, connection and early language development.

Long before children use words, they communicate through sounds, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, movement and shared attention. These early interactions help build the foundations for later language, play, social connection and literacy.

Parents and caregivers play a powerful role in supporting early communication. Everyday moments such as play, songs, books, mealtimes, bath time and routines all provide opportunities to build language in natural and meaningful ways.

At Spill the Beans Speech Pathology, Tennille uses a parent-coaching approach to support early language development. She is trained in programs including Make the Connection and Mother Goose, and works with families to share practical strategies that can be used at home within everyday routines.

Support is designed to help parents feel confident responding to their child’s communication, creating opportunities for interaction, and encouraging early sounds, gestures, words and phrases.

Stuttering refers to difficulties with fluency and flow of speech. It can be characterised by repetition of sounds, words or phrases or sound prolongations or the child may appear to get “stuck” trying to get their words out. 

Tennille is trained in the Lidcombe Program, an evidence-based behavioural treatment to reduce stuttering in children under 6. Stuttering intervention may be valuable if your child is having difficulties with their fluency of speech.

Some children may experience challenges with their eating and drinking, including general fussiness, a limited diet, mealtime battles or difficulties managing new textures or tastes.

Tennille utilises various evidence based approaches to support you and your family to have a more positive mealtime experience. These approaches include Responsive Feeding Therapy, Ellen Satter’s Division of Responsibility and the Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) Approach. 

At Spill the Beans, we take a neuroaffirming approach to supporting children and families.

This means we respect and value different ways of communicating, playing, learning and interacting. Rather than trying to make children appear “less autistic” or more compliant, we focus on helping them feel understood, supported and able to participate in ways that are meaningful and safe for them.

Support may include building communication skills, supporting emotional regulation and self-advocacy, adapting environments, using visual supports or AAC, and helping families and educators better understand each child’s strengths, preferences and support needs.

 Spill the Beans Speech Pathology supports children who are experiencing difficulties with reading, spelling, phonological awareness, decoding or early literacy development.

Tennille is a licensed Read3 professional and uses evidence-based structured literacy approaches, including systematic synthetic phonics, to help children build the foundations they need for reading and spelling success.

Where possible, we work collaboratively with families and schools to support consistent strategies across therapy, home and the classroom.

 Spill the Beans is a registered Preschool Boost supplier, providing speech pathology support to eligible early childhood services across the Limestone Coast.

Through Preschool Boost, we work alongside preschool and early learning teams to support children’s communication, language, early literacy, social participation and school readiness. Support may include educator coaching, in-room modelling, small-group programs, family information sessions and practical strategies embedded into everyday play and routines.

  Tennille also provides professional mentoring and clinical supervision for speech pathologists seeking support with paediatric practice, clinical reasoning, report writing, goal setting, intervention planning and confidence in rural or private practice settings.

Mentoring can be tailored to the clinician’s goals and may include discussion around speech sound disorders, early language, literacy, AAC, stuttering, neuroaffirming practice, NDIS reporting and balancing the many moving parts of paediatric caseloads.

Sessions are available online and can be arranged monthly or as needed.