Bianca Grobler Speech Therapy

12/06/2026

Building Strong Readers Starts with Sound Awareness!📖

Did you know that before children can read and spell successfully, they need to develop strong phonological awareness skills?

In speech therapy, we work on:
✅ Identifying the first sound in a word (e.g., /c/ in cat)
✅ Hearing the middle vowel sound (e.g., /a/ in cat)
✅ Identifying the last sound (e.g., /t/ in cat)
✅ Building and blending CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words such as cat, dog, sun, and pig
✅ Letter recognition and matching letters to their sounds

These skills help children:
📚 Learn to read more easily
✏️ Improve spelling abilities
🧠 Strengthen listening and sound discrimination skills
💡 Build confidence in the classroom

A child who can hear, identify, and manipulate sounds within words has a strong foundation for literacy development. Learning letters is important, but understanding the sounds they represent is what truly unlocks reading!🔐

Try this at home: Choose a simple CVC word and ask your child:
"What sound do you hear at the beginning?"
"What sound is in the middle?"
"What sound do you hear at the end?"

Small daily practice can make a big difference!⭐️

09/06/2026

💚Speech Therapy Fun!💚

Today we focused on lip rounding, breath support, and oral muscle strength through engaging activities.

🌬 Blowing bubbles encouraged lip rounding and controlled airflow, both important for speech sound production.🫧

🌬 Blowing torn pieces of paper across a table helped develop breath control, sustained airflow, and coordination of the oral muscles in a fun and motivating way.

Small activities can make a big difference in building the foundational skills needed for clear communication!🗣

25/05/2026

Oral-motor activities are more than just fun and games — they play an important role in strengthening the muscles needed for clear speech, chewing, swallowing, and overall oral coordination 👄✨

Through playful tasks like blowing, sucking, chewing, tongue movements, and lip exercises, children can improve:
🌟 Lip strength and closure
🌟 Tongue mobility and coordination
🌟 Jaw stability
🌟 Breath control for speech
🌟 Feeding and swallowing skills
🌟 Speech clarity and sound production
🌟 Focus and confidence during communication

The best part? When therapy feels like play, children stay motivated, engaged, and excited to learn! 💛

Strong muscles + happy learning = growing communication skills one smile at a time 😊

22/05/2026

Some Autism traits are well known and overgeneralized while others are less known and often subtle differences.

Autism is a combination of characteristics and not just 1-2 traits. While almost everyone will have something in common with Autistic people, actually autistic people will have patterns of differences in social communication and interests and routines.

Here are how these lesser known traits are categorized:

Social communication:
Stereotypes: non-speaking, socially avoidant
Nonstereotypical differences: difficulty understanding abstract language and concepts (such as time concepts, pronouns, prepositions), flat affect/ exaggerated facial expressions or body language, advanced communication skills, socially motivated but different in *how* they socialize

Interests & routines:
Stereotypical: only likes one thing, extremely distressed with all changes in routine
Non-stereotypical/lesser known: collecting items (and often not using said items for play or other purpose), difficulty transitioning before previous task is complete (or if previous task is not “perfect”), strong sense of direction on roads (tied to memory skills and routines, can also be the opposite for many 🤣), and carries a comfort item everywhere

This area also includes sensory differences such as: holding hands out or shaping body in tight or unusual ways, running fingers along the hall walls, discomfort in crowds, high or low pain tolerance

Differences in Autism can vary from person to person and an autistic person may have all of the differences in this visual, or non of the differences in this visual. But all autistic people will have *some* differences in social communication and interest and routines.

19/05/2026

👌👌

Die blaasaksie (of blaasbeweging) speel ’n belangrike rol in spraakontwikkeling, veral in die vroeë kinderjare wanneer asembeheer en mondmotoriese vaardighede nog ontwikkel.

🌬️ Rol van die blaasaksie in spraakontwikkeling

Blaasaktiwiteite help ’n kind om te leer beheer oor uitasem te verkry.

In spraak is dit belangrik dat die kind die lugvloei kan reguleer – nie te vinnig of te stadig nie – om klanke duidelik te vorm.

Voorbeeld: Wanneer ’n kind op ’n fluitjie of borrels blaas, oefen hy om ’n konstante, beheerde lugvloei te handhaaf – dieselfde beginsel wat by spraak gebruik word.

Mond- en lipspiere versterking

Blaas vereis sterk en gekoördineerde lip-, tong- en wangspiere.

Hierdie spiere is noodsaaklik vir die vorming van klanke soos /p/, /b/, /m/, /f/, en /v/.

Deur te blaas (bv. op ’n strooitjie, kersie of borrels), word die artikulasiespiere geoefen wat later help met duidelike uitspraak.

Koördinering tussen asemhaling en spraak

Spraak vereis dat kinders leer om asemhaling, stem en artikulasie gelyktydig te beheer.

Blaasaktiwiteite help om hierdie koördinasie te ontwikkel deur bewustheid te skep van wanneer om asem te neem en uit te blaas.

Stimulasie van oraal-sensoriese bewustheid

Blaas stimuleer die gevoel van lugvloei oor lippe en tong.

Dit verbeter sensoriese terugvoer, wat belangrik is om te voel hoe klanke gevorm word (bv. watter dele van die mond gebruik word).

🧩 Voorbeelde van blaasaktiwiteite wat spraak bevorder

Blaas borrels of watteballetjies oor ’n tafel.

Blaas deur ’n strooitjie in water.

Speel op ’n fluitjie of harmonika.

Blaas liggies teen ’n spieël om “mis” te maak.

10/05/2026

Happy Mother’s Day to all the incredible moms who nurture, support, and help little voices grow every day💕

27/04/2026

🧸Learning Prepositions!

Through simple, hands-on play, children are learning important concepts like:
✔️ in
✔️ on
✔️ under
✔️ behind
✔️ in front of
✔️ between

By moving Teddy around and describing where he is, children build vocabulary, improve sentence structure, and strengthen their understanding of spatial concepts—all while having fun! Activities like this are perfect for developing expressive language and following directions.⭐️

🧸Try it at home: Grab a toy and practice giving simple instructions like “Put Teddy under the table” or ask “Where is Teddy now?”

20/04/2026

Hands-on activities like this help make learning meaningful and engaging for little learners. 💛

10/04/2026

Learning is fun!😁

We had to search for specific items using a flashlight - how cool!🕵‍♂️

Then, we had to identify our first, middle and last sounds - developing phonological awareness and auditory perception.

This was so much fun, we did not want the session to end! This is your reminder that kids learn through play - and yes, spelling can be fun! That's how you keep kids interested and engaged. It's really a win-win situation!👏

😎

02/04/2026

How to stimulate language this Easter🥚

• Counting the eggs
• The ones I've used in the photo below, can open - so it splits in half (half is a concept to practice here, and you can cut other items in half while preparing food (e.g. apples, bananas, strawberries, sausages etc)
• When the egg opens, it has a shape inside
• There are various colours - matching them, identify and name each 🎨
• Prepositions (one of my favourites!) Hiding the eggs and then when found, emphasize the preposition (position of the egg); on the chair, under the table, behind the plant, inside the basket etc.

And lastly... HAVE FUN!😁 Enjoy time outdoors, stimulate language and expose your child to different textures.

Although Easter is fun-filled and the eggs are delicious, let's all remember the real reason why we celebrate this weekend.🙏

Grace upon grace! We are all so blessed!💕

🤍