Lauren’s Story

A Little About Me…
I was born and raised in a small community in rural Quebec (near Montreal). Growing up I always loved working with kids. I taught piano and tutored elementary and high school students throughout my high school and university years. My fascination for the brain and the way children develop the ability to speak began while taking child development and neuroscience courses in university which lead me to pursue the field of speech-language pathology. 

I graduated from the University of Alberta with a Masters of Clinical Science in Speech Language Pathology in 2015 and have worked in a variety of settings for the past few years (elementary school, high school, preschool, self-contained autism program, acute care hospital, long term care hospital, rehab facility, telehealth therapy) and have found that the most common barrier to a child’s progress is a lack of frequency of practice of the skills and strategies learned in therapy.

Why Start Apheleia Speech?

There are many reasons why I started Apheleia Speech. It really started with my husband listening to my many frustrations from my previous jobs as a Speech Therapist and pointing out to me how we could easily fix many of them.

Having too many children on a caseload meant little time for session preparation, minimal contact with parents and the bare minimum of therapy time for each student leading to less-than-ideal progress. The public sector simply doesn’t have enough funding to provide ideal services; Speech Therapists are stretched too thin. Private practice allows me to take smaller case loads and focus on providing the best care possible.

A second barrier was the requirement to provide group sessions. For some goals, like working on conversational and social skills, group therapy is ideal. However, with speech practice, having other children in the group can often create distractions. Apheleia Speech allows me to create individualized and highly personalized therapy plans. No more group therapy sessions where half the time is spent keeping behaviours under control – every minute of my time is focused on helping your child reach their full potential.

Finally, the biggest issue of all was not having enough parent engagement and consistent at-home speech practice. I make this a mandatory part of the Apheleia Speech process. Parents are the experts on their kids and I am the expert on speech and language development; so both components are crucial for speech therapy to be effective. Parents who are committed to helping their children through their speech and language goals are the parents I want to be working with! All-in-all Apheleia Speech allows for more frequent and accessible contact between the family and the therapist in order to provide feedback promptly and promote accountability for home practice.