Sarah Howe SLT

19/08/2026

Such a high bar for children in our society.

Why are children the only people expected to be good at everything?

Adults don’t need to be. Someone can be a visionary architect but completely useless in the kitchen. A brilliant chef who couldn’t tell you the first thing about physics. A software engineer with terrible handwriting. A musician who hates sport. An accountant who can barely draw a stick figure.

Nobody worries about these people. Nobody says, “Yes, she’s doing incredibly well as a surgeon, but we really need to bring her poetry up to standard.” Nobody gives the successful business owner extra homework because his understanding of medieval history is below where we’d expect it to be for his age.

We just accept that adults are good at some things and not others.

In fact, we celebrate it. We talk about people finding their thing. Playing to their strengths. Developing expertise. Going deep. Building a career around what they’re good at while happily outsourcing, avoiding, or being completely mediocre at a hundred other things.

But children? No, sorry, we have different rules for you. We’re going to need you to do absolutely everything, and show us you can do it all well. And when you can’t, we’re going to get very hung up on the bits you’re struggling with. A ‘well-rounded’ child is a good child, right.

Good at reading. Good at writing. Good at maths. Good at science. Good at sport. Organised and tidy. Social. Creative. Focused. Resilient. Articulate. Independent. Cooperative. And preferably progressing through all of it at roughly the same speed as everyone else their age.

If you think about what that does to the balance of childhood, it’s crazy. We deliberately hunt out the things children aren’t very good at, expose their weaknesses, then spend years making sure those weaknesses get lots of attention. Usually at the cost of spending more time on what they naturally lean towards.

Then adulthood arrives and...we tell people the exact opposite.

Find your strengths. Explore them at depth. Specialise. Build on what you’re good at. Build on what interests you. Stop trying to be everything to everyone.

Oh. Ok.

So...can someone tell me why we don’t just say that from the start?

17/05/2026

Great to see some MPs getting behind the push to raise awareness of DLD 💬

A developmental language disorder (DLD) is a brain difference that makes talking and listening difficult, and one in fourteen people suffer from this invisible, lifelong disability.

A person with DLD can have difficulties understanding what is said to them (receptive language) and speaking to others (expressive language).

The diagnosis is given by a speech pathologist to a person who has difficulty talking and/or understanding language - it is 50 times more prevalent than hearing impairment and five times more prevalent than autism.

It starts in childhood, but as the signs of DLD are not well known, late diagnosis is common; it impacts daily life at home, school, and work.

People who have DLD may also experience co-occurring difficulties such as dyslexia, ADHD, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and developmental coordination disorder/dyspraxia.

Dr Shaun Ziegenfusz, Co-CEO of the DLD Project, and local speech pathologist Vivien Wood stopped by my office to chat about increasing visibility for this lifelong disorder.

If you want more information about DLD, visit the DLD Project website. The DLD Project

17/05/2026

1.3 million children have Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), yet the Government have left them out of their plans for SEND reform.

But with your help, we can change this!🤝

Email your MP today to help them find the missing million>>https://bit.ly/4cwvHLP

12/02/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1AVYEvHf4s/

12/02/2026

I was that parent who ended up talking to the teacher every single day, before and after school.

'This is what our night and morning was like, this is where my kid is at today. Please look after them by ... '

At the end of the day it was the teacher telling me something from the day. 'They had a good day' or 'they didn't meet expectations today.'

I always wanted specifics.
I wanted to know what had happened, what those expectations were, what supports were in place, what the adult's response was, if the adult had tried to be flexible or understanding.

I didn't go in looking to start fights.
I wasn't trying to be hard work.
I needed information about what was happening at school. Because my kid wasn't fine there.

I created this teacher-parent communication template. I know that every teacher won't have time to use it for every kid. But if a particular student is really struggling at school, struggling to attend, and the adults are trying to support them, I think this resource could be helpful.

I hope.

It's a move away from standard behaviour slips, at any rate.

Em 🌈

19/05/2025

We want the government to introduce mandatory neurodiversity training for all teachers and support staff as part of core training.

10/05/2025

I got a functional tattoo today.

My daughter Ru uses AAC. Her ability to communicate depends on her access to an AAC device. She uses an iPad with a pictoral app, she uses a letterboard stencil, and she uses the keyboard on her iPad.

Letterboard tattoos are not my idea, but they’re a wonderful idea in my opinion.

Now as long as Ru has me around, she has access to AAC. With the amount of time we spend running, climbing, swimming and scooting, having hands-free AAC is a game changer.

Thank you to my tattoo artist and friend Swaraj for making it beautiful. I’ll share more pics when it’s healed.

04/12/2024

Isn't this so sad? Feels pretty ableist too.

27/11/2024

12/11/2024

So much to say about this post. Thank you Perth Children's Occupational Therapy and very well put.

Asking a parent to stay calm and regulated while their child is dysregulated is like asking them to forget their entire emotional history in that moment.

Our responses to children’s feelings have been socially and culturally conditioned. When we get frustrated with our children's emotions, it's often because our own emotional experiences were shaped by how our parents responded to us when we were young. If our feelings were dismissed, ignored, or met with frustration, we might have internalised the belief that emotions—especially big or messy ones—are something to be avoided or “fixed.” These responses are often passed down through generations, ingrained in adults as they become parents themselves. So, when our child is experiencing big feelings, we might find ourselves reacting in ways that mirror the frustration we experienced growing up—because it feels familiar, even if it’s not helpful.

That’s why it’s so important we give ourselves grace when struggling to stay regulated in the face of our children’s feelings. I talk a lot about co-regulation, but the truth is, we’re human, and we can only do so much with what we’ve got in the heat of the moment.

You’re doing the best you can 💛