At Last! Speech and Language Therapy Arrives On The Costa del Sol
Penny Hunter has been working as a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist since 1988 after qualifying with a four years Honours Degree in Speech from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne University.
Penny went on to gain a Masters Degree In Community Care from Keele University whilst also working in her first post in Manchester.
She also trained to become a Makaton signing/symbols/language tutor.
Penny worked for the National Health Service in many different settings, and has a wealth of experience to her name including working with children who have severe and multiply-handicaps, mild to severe learning difficulties, deaf-blind, and those with varying degrees of autism, as well as many children with speech and/or language delays/disorders, in addition those with reading and spelling difficulties.
Penny has also been involved in setting up a Speech and Language Therapy Service in a Challenging Behaviour Team and setting up and running 2 Speech and Language Units within a mainstream school for seven years.
Penny was involved in research into speech sound processing and production for one year and assisted with the development of the new Nuffield Dyspraxia Assessment Programme.
Penny's last post in the U.K. was at the renowned Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear hospital in London where children from both within and outside the U.K. received detailed assessments, therapy, and advice from the Nuffield Speech and Hearing Centre Team which specialised in children who presented with dyspraxia.
Penny has extensive experience in giving children daily intensive, weekly, individual and group therapy.
Penny is a keen believer in early intervention. Children with communication difficulties may become frustrated or withdrawn. It is therefore advisable to begin Speech and Language Therapy at an early age to minimise their loss of esteem and confidence and the possibility of them becoming a target of bullying.
Since moving to the Costa Del Sol, Penny has been on O.C.I. radio and has been involved with children from a number of schools along the coast, and owing to the great demand here, has also treated stroke clients.
Penny told us that she is often asked what Speech and Language Therapists actually do and here she summarises their role :-
Speech and Language Therapists are specialists in communication disorders. The ability to communicate is central to all that we know, who we are, how we learn and how we relate to each other at school, within the home and at work.
Thousands of people fail to access social, economic and career opportunities due to communication difficulties. In the U.K., approximately 2.5 million people have a communication disorder of some kind. Of those, 800,000 have a difficulty so severe that it is hard for anyone outside their own families to understand them.
One in ten children have some kind of communication difficulty.
Speech and Language Therapists work to assess, diagnose, and develop a programme of care to maximise the communication potential of the people under their care. Such work will involve direct work with the clients as well involving the significant others in their lives.
The diversity of people seen includes :-
Children:
- Mild, moderate or severe learning difficulties.
- Physical disability
- Specific difficulty with processing sounds
- Specific difficulties in producing sounds
- Dyspraxia
- Specific language delay or disorder
- Hearing impairment
- Cleft palate
- Stammering/dysfluency
- Autism/social interaction difficulties
- Reading/Spelling difficulties
- Developmental aphasia
Adults:
- Stroke clients
- Neurological impairments and degenerative conditions, head injury, Parkinson's, MS, motor-neuron disease, Altzheimer
- Cancer of the head, neck and throat, including laryngectomy
- Voice problems
- Physical disability
- Stammering
- Hearing impairment
- Learning difficulties
Penny has a friendly, caring, supportive and positive approach in therapy and likes to work as a team with parents, teachers and health professionals. She is also happy to provide talks and training on any aspect of communication.
Penny is only one of two, fully U.K qualified and Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and Health Professional Council registered in the whole of Spain, so we feel fortunate that she decided to settle for her new life here on the Costa Del Sol!
For further information contact Penny on 952565841 or 677128452
e-mail: saltinthesun@hotmail.com
Penny Hunter B.Sc. (Hons.), M.A. Reg. HPC, Reg RCSLT
Specialist Speech and Language Therapist