ANNA BIAVATI

Thank you for the excellent training in SM which was relevant and empowering as Anna really got across with energy and enthusiasm that we can make a difference. Since the... read more training I have been able to put the strategies into practice and spread the knowledge and information on SM to pupils, parents, fellow teachers and professionals. We realise that making a positive difference is a long drawn out process but it is heartening being armed with some strategies and understanding into the condition. I particularly found it useful chatting to other parents, teachers and professionals and one recovered adult who suffered from SM as a child. Thanks again!

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.

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.

We contacted Anna as our 3-year-old bilingual child seemed to have a few problems to deal with people. He didn't speak with anybody that wasn't part of the family. Not... read more even the school teachers. After just one meeting with Anna and some advice she gave us and his teachers, he started little by little to speak and in a matter of weeks all problems have been resolved. My wife and I can't recommend Anna's services enough. Thanks Anna.

We approached Anna to help with our little boy when he was 3, he had a severe phonological speech disorder. Anna seen us every 2 weeks and straight away we... read more felt so supported and comfortable with her. We loved how she included the whole family in the sessions. I always felt so at ease that with a typical lively 3 year old Anna would always make sure he wasn’t just sitting still, he would be jumping and playing whilst always learning. We are now finished with our sessions but know if we need anymore help she would welcome us back with open arms. I’m not sure where we would be if we had stuck to NHS sessions as the difference in sessions was huge! We would hugely recommend Word steps speech and language 😁

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 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 🙂

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

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.

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.

I cannot recommend Anna highly enough. She helped my son who did not speak to any adult in school until p3, to gain confidence and he is now in p5... read more and able to approach the teacher and initiate speech. Anna worked with my son at his pace, she gently gained his confidence through play, starting in the environment he felt comfortable in – home, and then progressed onto working with him at school. Through the work that Anna did with him he can now speak to children in his class that he didn’t talk to for the first 3 years and he can also approach teachers to tell them if something is wrong. Anna is very knowledgeable about the psychology underlying the problem and works to increase self esteem. She really engages with the children and gets on their level and she has a wonderful energy and charisma.

Anna was a wonderful speech therapist for my son. She was endlessly patient and always had a treasure of fun activities for him to do. He really enjoyed all her... read more sessions and his speech problems improved a lot. Thank you Anna!

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.

She was my daughter's speech therapist and we loved her. She used a playful strategy and my daughter improved very well

WOW! What an amazing training session. Our staff has just spent an engaging and interactive hour listening to Anna help us become more aware and have a deeper understanding... read more of selective mutism. She is truly inspiring and has such a depth of knowledge. She was able, very simply and eloquently, to explain the journey of someone with this condition and we all left feeling that we, as educators were better equipped to deal with associated problems. Thank you once again Anna.

Anna has been incredible over the past year working with us to help our son overcome his SN. Anna's passion for working with children has undoubtedly changed our lives. We... read more felt so lost before we had Anna on our side as SM is very rare. Anna has fantastic strategies and works closely with other professionals that are in your child's lives. My sons nursery teachers couldn't praise her enough. We wouldn't have had the success we had without her. Thanks Anna!

Hello, we are Vicente and Feli, and this is our experience with Anna Biavati. Our boy, Robbie, was attending nursery and the nursery staff showed their concern about our... read more child's speech development and suggested we could contact a speech therapist to improve the child's communication skills. We were aware of it, but unsure about what to do. We spent over 8 months with an NHS speech therapist; the child wasn't improving and we were frustrated because we did not see any progress. We met Anna Biavati when our boy was 4 and a half years old. Since Robbie was only months away from starting Primary school, we contacted her. Best decision we could make. Between April and November, Anna made a huge positive impact on our child, who, from speaking with single words moved to understand orders and instructions and reply with full sentences. There were only minor issues that the boy would overcome and polish by himself. Anna was able to spot our child's problem straight away. It was Specific Language disorder. He was able to read, but not to talk. Anna prepared and designed a plan for him, using a variety of games and strategies, also introducing other languages, since we are Spanish and Italian respectively. After each lesson, she gave us the right instructions: how to play, talk, motivate and improve communication. Anna encouraged the use of three languages, instead of focusing on just English for the child not to be confused, which ultimately has been another great decision. As the boy's communication skills were progressing, his social skills did too. And by December, he was able to memorise and perform at the Nativity play, which was a significant event and improved his status in school. After Anna gave Robbie the tools to express himself, his confidence also boosted and his speech rocketed. Our boy is about to turn 6, his Primary teacher is in awe, Robbie is at the top of his class at reading and numeracy. Anna is accesible, competent, kind, professional, accessible, dynamic, likable, positive, cooperative, creative, knowleged, experienced, supportive and creates an instant bond both with children and parents. And she speaks several languages! From our experience, we can say Anna makes a difference and trusting her and her work is a wise decision.

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.