ANNA BIAVATI

Anna has worked with my son for over 2 years and has been an absolute pleasure to have. She has become a friend and a confidant as well as an... read more incredible speech therapist. She goes above and beyond to ensure everyone's comfort and happiness and is a true professional. She helped my son overcome his selective mutism through working with us as a family to help us understand the condition and how to help, as well as with the school to help them adapt to his plan and understand his condition. She provided all parties with a tailored program and I can honestly say that without her generous, patient spirit he would not have made it. She is kind, supportive and truly lovely and her program has made this the best journey possible.

I contacted Anna as someone had recommended her to me through one of the selective mutism pages on Facebook. Words can’t express how grateful I will always be too Anna... read more for her kindness and helpfulness to myself and especially my daughter. After years of getting no where, struggling to find proper help and support for my daughter we finally found someone who totally understands selective mutism and took the time to explain everything properly to me about how my daughter will be feeling. My daughter built up a lovely relationship with Anna she has such a lovely way with children so patient and kind and always on hand if we ever need advice or support. Anna you are amazing!

I asked Anna to conduct an English assessment ending with a report. I brought my daughter to Anna's clinic at her home. it was a great session, my daughter interacted... read more with Anna perfectly well and Anna was perfectly able to manage with my three years old daughter. I am perfectly fine with the report that Anna wrote and find her recommendations very useful and helpful to improve my daughter English language. If you are reading this review probably you need a certified language therapist, I would strongly recommend Anna to you. Thank you Anna 🙂

Our child has been suffering from Selective Mutism and only speaks to a small number of fellow pupils in the same class. Anna is a specialist in this condition and... read more with her help, our child has now widened their circle of friends. Her relaxed manner puts children at ease. This gave my child confidence to speak and play with people they had been unable to do so previously with. New friendships have been formed through this and our child is more content and happy to go to school than ever before. Throughout the process, Anna would keep us updated with progress and would look to gain agreement with us how to continue. We can't praise her high enough for making a real difference.

Anna is absolutely incredible both for the parents and the children. She has healed our 6year old daughter from SM after a 2- year mute period in school. We cannot... read more thank her enough and warmely recommend her services.

Anna has been so supportive of both me and my four year old son over the past 18 months. Our sessions whilst challenging at times were also great fun... read more and my son enjoyed every single one. Anna approached his speech delay from a different angle to that of the nhs therapists, taking a step back and looking at the cause. All of the activities done in clinic and the resources provided for use at home were tailored very specifically for his needs as opposed to using a boiler plate approach. Anna was a great sounding board for me to bounce ideas off and provided invaluable input at meetings and with forms. She provides an all round service, employs innovative ideas and techniques and most importantly set my son at ease and helped him to have fun whilst progressing his speech. Would highly recommend.

Anna was a angel in our lifes. We contacted her when my daughter was 3,5 yo with very significant speech delay and the NHS slt said she wasn't ready for... read more 1-1 therapy. However, I knew we had to do more for her so I decided to look for private therapy. A friend recommended Anna who is also specialised in bilinguism (our family has 3 languages). From the first session I could see the difference in Cissa. Anna has a special way to talk to children that is very interesting. My daughter absolutely loves when "Aunt Anna comes to play". She taught me so much about how to speak, what to do, how to help Cissa learn. She went above and beyond, she fought hard for Cissa to get a space in the ICAN provision - that was never mentioned to us before by the NHS although Cissa was the perfect candidate for that. She is a very qualified professional that works in a personalised way, who design activities that will help Cissa to achieve her goals while teaching me how to do all on my own. I just wish I had found her earlier!

We are a bilingual family. When our daughter was approaching the age of 3, we noticed she was having language and communication issues. We contacted Anna after having been told... read more by the NHS Speech and Language Therapist that everything was ok with our daughter’s speech. We knew that was not the case. Anna carried out a thorough assessment and identified areas to work on. We followed Anna’s advice, and put in place the strategies given. This was very helpful, and our daughter started making progress. We found Anna to be a really important point of reference and support throughout our daughter’s journey and continued to use her services as she progressed in school. She is now 10, and we still do an annual review and assessment to make sure that we are on track. We cannot thank Anna enough for the help and support she has given us as a family. Her support has meant that our daughter’s confidence has steadily grown and she can look into the future with a positive outlook. We would highly recommend Anna. Claudia

My 9 year old son had a lateral lisp and struggled with ‘Th’ sounds. Anna worked with him over six sessions which were fun and interesting and provided exercises for... read more us to continue with between her visits. We have seen a huge improvement with his speech and my son is much more confident and happier. I am so glad we contacted Anna for help and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending her.

Anna helped my son Marco from about the age of 3.5 till about 5 years old. She has been an absolute life saver, amazing with the wee one and superb... read more at explaining to me and husband how to best support his needs. We are raising our children as multilingual, and as her own experiences were an absolute godsend. In addition to being a very knowledgeable professional Anna is also an amazing person. Can not recommend her ability and services high enough.

I took my six year old grandson to see Anna as he had a problem pronouncing certain letters. Anna quickly established there was no physical problem for this and... read more set in motion a lesson plan to help him overcome this. She is a lovely lady who is clearly knowledgeable in her field and has such a lovely way with the children that my grandson did not have a problem going to see Anna and indeed looked forward to it. Her lessons have helped immensely and gave me the tools to continue her good work. I am happy to recommend her.

Very highly recommended, Anna is clearly an expert in her field and gave our daughter a thorough assessment, we were glad to have contacted her.

Anna worked with my son before and just after he started school and the results were fantastic. He now has lovely clear speech and we are so grateful. Anna was... read more friendly and put him at ease right away. The therapy was all based around games and fun exercises and Anna took the time to teach us how to continue the therapy with our son between appointments in order to get the best results. I would highly recommend Word Steps.

During 2019 we approached Anna for help with our Spanish pronunciation. As adult learners we wanted our British mouths to make more Spanish-sounding vowels and consonants, and I was... read more having real problems trying to roll my “r’s” convincingly. Anna quickly devised a short programme to meet our requests, and also devised exercises to improve our intonation and to help make our sentences flow. We enjoyed the sessions, and we feel that we made good progress. Muchas gracias, Anna!

I have just completed the SM video course online for parents proposed by Anna. This is an amazing piece of work that has already been so useful to us on... read more a daily basis and that I recommend to any parent of child with SM. The video format is really good, I personally feel that watching videos is much easier, pleasant and understandable than reading a book. In addition, if I had already heard about most topics / tools, I did not know all of them and above all, I really appreciated having everything in one place with some structure around the different topics. I feel that I now understand much better how each part is related to another and ultimately feel much more empowered to support my daughter in overcoming SM.

I attended a course about SM run by Anna of Word Steps Speech & Language Therapy. This was an eye-opening day for me. Anna shared her extensive experience with the... read more group in an engaging and very positive way. Her recommendations for useful books for my child, and for me, were excellent.

I cannot speak highly enough of Anna! As parents we were feeling fairly deflated in our approach and frustrated with Other professionals regarding our sons speech delay and clarity of... read more speech. We have attended therapy on and off for approx 6months with Anna. What we have learnt has been invaluable and what my son has achieved in this time is truely heartwarming. It has been hard work but with so many ways to play and stimulate our son he has rarely objected and even enjoys the games/activities! Anna thinks outside the box and truely “knows” her clients so that she knows how to get the best from them. Her professionalism and experience is second to none, she empowers parents and really connects with children. She is also a genuinely lovely person. My only regret is that we never met sooner! A fantastic experience.

Anna lead the training in Inverness, I came to the course half way through the day so I felt like I missed the most important parts. I took away... read more from the course a hangout that was clear and helpful. I've not long learnt about SM and I'm grateful for doing this training as a mother and a childminder.