Little Birds Allied Health/Speech Pathology

14/08/2026

🎉 School holidays are coming… and Little Birds has you covered! 🐦✨

Looking for something fun, social AND meaningful for your child these school holidays?

Our Little Birds School Holiday Program is designed to give children opportunities to play, create, connect and build confidence — while having lots of fun along the way!

🌈 Fun, themed activities
🎨 Creative & hands-on play
🤝 Social connection & teamwork
🧠 Communication, problem-solving & independence
💛 Supportive, neurodiversity-affirming environment

Whether your child loves getting creative, building, moving, playing or making new friends, there’s something for everyone!

📅 School holidays
📍 Little Birds Allied Health (Templestowe)
👧🧒 Places are limited

✨ Expressions of Interest are now open!

Please note: A minimum of 3 participants is required for the program to proceed.

📩 To register your interest, contact our clinic or email our reception team at [email protected]

We’ll be in touch to confirm the program once minimum numbers are reached.

Because school holidays can be more than just keeping busy — they’re an opportunity to play, connect and grow. 🐦💛

🌏🌟Sᴀʀᴀʜ | Bɪʟɪɴɢᴜᴀʟ SLP | Eᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | Bᴜsɪɴᴇss Oᴡɴᴇʀ🌟 🌏

11/08/2026

✨ Something exciting has landed at Little Birds Allied Health! ✨

We're always looking for ways to make therapy more engaging, meaningful and motivating for the children we support. That's why we're so excited to introduce PlayoPuff into our sessions!

💛 Why we love it:
🌟 Encourages active participation through a captivating games.
🌟 Supports speech and, language, social skills, literacy skills and you can even customise your own cards.
🌟 Easily adapts to each child's goals, interests and abilities.
🌟 Makes therapy feel like play, while still targeting meaningful outcomes.

Whether we're practising following directions, building vocabulary, listening comprehension or simply creating joyful opportunities to connect, PlayoPuff helps us bring therapy to life in a whole new way.

Children often don't realise just how hard they're working because they're having fun and that's exactly how we like it.

Technology will never replace the relationship between a therapist and a child, but the right technology can make therapy even more engaging and effective.

At Little Birds, we believe children learn best when they're engaged, motivated and enjoying the experience. PlayoPuff is another way we're investing in innovative tools that help make every session meaningful.

🌏🌟Sᴀʀᴀʜ | Bɪʟɪɴɢᴜᴀʟ SLP | Eᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | Bᴜsɪɴᴇss Oᴡɴᴇʀ🌟 🌏

06/08/2026

Plot twist: Little Birds has accidentally become a bakery. 🍞🍪🎂😂

The Director picked up a new hobby and a new machine... making fresh bread!

What started as "I'll just make one loaf" has quickly turned into "What should I bake next?" 🤣

The staff have enjoyed a little wander into the kitchen...

The best part? It's not just the bread.

Our team is full of talented home bakers. We have our sourdough enthusiasts, cake makers, cookie bakers, and now a bread machine obsession. There's almost always something being shared around the clinic.

We love these little moments to pause, connect and chat between sessions. Looking after each other isn't just about supervision and support, it can also be sharing a warm loaf, a homemade cookie or a slice of cake.

A team that shares food together... stays together. 💛

What's your latest hobby? (Warning: ours may encourage carbs. 😂)


🌏🌟Sᴀʀᴀʜ | Bɪʟɪɴɢᴜᴀʟ SLP | Eᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | Bᴜsɪɴᴇss Oᴡɴᴇʀ🌟 🌏

05/08/2026

🚨 BREAKING NEWS: The Yeti is back! 🏔️👣

After mysteriously disappearing from the clinic months ago, we waited... and waited... hoping our beloved Yeti would wander home.

Sadly, he never did. 💔

So... we did what any determined allied health team would do.

We brought him back with a little help from a 3D printer! ✨

Instead of replacing the whole game, we gave it a second life.
It's a small reminder that sometimes the best solution isn't throwing something away, it's finding a way to repair, remake or reimagine it.

If you've ever visited us, you might recognise our Yeti from 'Yeti in My Spaghetti'—one of our favourite games for working on turn-taking, fine motor skills, language, problem-solving, and, of course, lots of laughter.

Welcome back, Yeti. We missed you. 🥹

👇 Tell us... where do you think the original Yeti disappeared to?

🌏🌟Sᴀʀᴀʜ | Bɪʟɪɴɢᴜᴀʟ SLP | Eᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | Bᴜsɪɴᴇss Oᴡɴᴇʀ🌟 🌏

04/08/2026

From student placement to PhD researcher, it’s always special to see the journey unfold.

Four years ago, Joanna joined us from Hong Kong as a student speech pathologist, eager to learn and gain insight into the profession as well as a bilingual clinic.

Since then, we’ve watched her journey evolve — from a university student completing her placement, to a qualified speech pathologist, and now a PhD candidate combining clinical work with research.

One of the most rewarding parts of welcoming students and early career clinicians is seeing where their paths take them. It’s a little bit of a “blast from the past” moment when we reflect on where someone started and where they are now.

During her visit, Joanna shared updates on her journey as a speech pathologist, what she has been exploring through her research, advice for students entering the profession, and what excites her about the future of speech pathology.

The profession continues to grow through clinicians who are curious, passionate and committed to making a difference, both in practice and through research.

We’re so grateful to be part of Joanna’s journey and love seeing our profession connected across countries, cultures and career stages. 🌏


Little Birds Allied Health | Multilingual Experts

29/07/2026

👂 Hearing vs Listening vs Understanding — what’s the difference?

These three words are often used interchangeably, but they’re actually different parts of communication!

👂 Hearing = detecting sound
This is the physical ability to notice sounds through your ears.
Example: Your child hears you call their name from another room.

👀 Listening = paying attention to and processing sounds
This involves focus, attention and making sense of the sounds around us.
Example: Your child stops playing and turns when you say their name.

🧠 Understanding = knowing what the message means
This is the language part — connecting words, sentences and ideas to meaning.
Example: Your child understands “Put your shoes on because we’re going outside.”

A child can have excellent hearing but still find listening or understanding language difficult.

That’s why when we support children’s communication, we look beyond “Can they hear?” and consider the whole picture, including attention, language development, processing, and the environment. 💛

At Little Birds Allied Health, our Speech Pathologists have experience supporting children where hearing, listening and language all intersect. We work alongside families to understand the full communication picture and support each child’s unique strengths and needs. 🐦

If you have concerns about your child’s hearing, hearing checks or ear health, our friends at Caring Ears Audiology can help with assessment and support. 👂

16/07/2026

Some moments are just so special to celebrate. 💛

At Little Birds, we love celebrating the different seasons of life together. From being part of Pearl's wedding celebrations to now celebrating her journey into motherhood, it's been such a joy to watch this next chapter unfold.

We gathered for a little gender reveal, and let's just say... the screaming was next level! 😂🎉

Congratulations, Pearl and Raymond! We are so excited for you and can't wait to meet your little one. 💛👶✨


🌏🌟Sᴀʀᴀʜ | Bɪʟɪɴɢᴜᴀʟ SLP | Eᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | Bᴜsɪɴᴇss Oᴡɴᴇʀ🌟 🌏

15/07/2026

14/07/2026

Helping individuals learn, grow and connect. 💛

It's more than our motto, it's why we're here.

At Little Birds Allied Health, our Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists and Play Therapists work together to support children, adults and families to achieve their unique goals.

🌱 Learn: through curiosity, connection and evidence-based therapy.
🌱 Grow: in confidence, independence and everyday skills.
🌱 Connect: in ways that are meaningful, through spoken language, AAC, gestures, signs, play, relationships and participation.

Every person deserves to feel understood, supported and empowered to participate in the world around them.

We know that no two people are the same, which is why we take a collaborative, strengths-based and family-centred approach to therapy. Whether we're supporting communication, motor skills, emotional well-being, sensory needs, social connections, literacy, feeding or participation in everyday life, our goal is always the same: helping people thrive.

Because with the right support, people don't just learn, grow and connect, they flourish. 💙


🌏🌟Sᴀʀᴀʜ | Bɪʟɪɴɢᴜᴀʟ SLP | Eᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | Bᴜsɪɴᴇss Oᴡɴᴇʀ🌟 🌏

09/07/2026

Let's Spotlight the MAIN Assessment Tool! ⭐

We use the MAIN quite a bit at our clinic. In fact, it's one of our go-to assessment tools when working with bilingual and multilingual children.

Why?

Because communication is about so much more than isolated vocabulary or grammar scores.

The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) allows us to explore how children tell and understand stories across languages. It provides valuable information about narrative structure, language use, comprehension, and communication strengths in a way that is culturally and linguistically responsive.

One of the things we love most is that the MAIN can be used across multiple languages, helping us gain a more complete picture of a child's skills rather than relying on assessment in just one language.

The MAIN is also standardised, meaning there are clear administration procedures and scoring guidelines. However, it is not norm-referenced, which means the value comes from analysing performance and interpreting patterns rather than relying solely on standard scores or percentiles.

For many bilingual children, that rich descriptive information is exactly what we need to support accurate assessment and clinical decision-making.

Stay tuned as we unpack more about why the MAIN has become such a valuable tool in our assessment toolbox.


🌏🌟Sᴀʀᴀʜ | Bɪʟɪɴɢᴜᴀʟ SLP | Eᴅᴜᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ | Bᴜsɪɴᴇss Oᴡɴᴇʀ🌟 🌏