Maureen Byrne is a Speech and Language Therapist at Sensational Kids in Claremorris who sees both Shauna and Shauna’s twin sister for Speech and Language therapy. Discussing working with Shauna, Maureen says: “Our goal at Sensational Kids is to provide a child-centred, holistic approach to intervention that will help Shauna maximise her full potential. Our goals of therapy for Shauna, based on her parents’ concerns and the impact on Shauna’s daily life and peer interactions, have included her speech sounds, specifically the articulation of sounds that Shauna has found challenging which affect her intelligibility. In addition, during Speech and Language Therapy I have been targeting social skills and receptive and expressive language appropriate for where Shauna is at in school. This requires collaboration with her parents, her school and also the Sensational Kids occupational therapist, my colleague Kinza, who also works with Shauna and her sister.”

Discussing Shauna’s progress, Maureen says: “Shauna has made great progress with her speech and language goals and her initiation and conversation skills are also improving. Shauna’s parents have adapted the strategies provided and work hard on the carry-over exercises to increase the therapy impact at home. It is really lovely and satisfying to see Shauna progress and use her strengths; it’s also lovely to hear that her parents are reporting progress at home and in school.”

Shauna’s story is part of a project entitled #SensationalFamiles.  The project was approved by Government with support from the Dormant Accounts Fund, with the aim of shining a light on the impact of social enterprises like Sensational Kids.  A social enterprise is a business that works primarily to improve the lives of people. The business of social enterprise is social good. Sensational Kids exists only to provide subsidised therapy supports to children of all abilities including those with additional needs.