Category: Jennifer Warters
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My name’s Norman
Norman, a forty eight year old man with learning disabilities, was also blind. He was small in stature and looked permanently worried. I was told that his vision had been severely impaired after he had sustained a detached retina in both eyes at the age of 43. Unfortunately, he had refused to stay in bed…
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Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Having worked for several years in a school for children who were severely physically and intellectually disabled, I came to the conclusion that children with communication impairment prefer to be involved with music, movement and play rather than those activities that have an expectation of interaction. However when there is a difficulty with communication, the…
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Healing a Stammer Revealed Hidden Talents
When Paul was referred to me, I was in the midst of juggling my work as a speech and language therapist within the NHS in the north of England with my Academy of Spiritual Sciences Post Grad holistic therapy training. I received an urgent telephone call from Paul’s sister asking for help with her brother…
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Lego was the Key
Lenny at ten years old, was the oldest of four children. The family’s Health Visitor had noted his delayed development and limited communication when he was two years old. He was subsequently seen by a variety of professionals and submitted to repeated episodes of intervention in an endeavour to effect some improvement, with limited success.…
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Finbar the Dragon Slayer
My work in Ireland introduced me to some amazingly creative children. One of them was a little boy called Finbar. I only saw him twice but he taught me that children are able to quickly gain what they need in a space free from judgement and expectation with a variety of versatile props to allow…
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Yellow is a Feeling
Jim had learning disabilities and lived in a Residential Home with five other men. He was in his early fifties and was referred to me with anxiety and depression in the hope that I could discover what was causing his unhappiness. Jim had a very limited vocabulary of single words. A word he used continuously…
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Don’t Stop Reading Fairy Tales
I want to talk to parents, grandparents and teachers to let them know how important it is to read fairy tales to their children, grandchildren and pupils. We are holding the light for a lost generation who are becoming increasingly disconnected from their intuition and from nature and their environment. A child is like sleeping…
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A Child ‘s Past Life as a Pirate
When I met Kevin, he was four years old, his mother had attended a workshop I was running in the Republic of Ireland to talk about my therapeutic work with children. At the end of the day she approached me for help. A single parent, she was struggling to cope with her ‘unmanageable and hyperactive’…
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Creating Child’s Play
All children need to play and use their play to make sense of their experiences and to make sense of what is happening around them. Through play, they are able to channel overwhelming feelings and ‘play out’ situations that they feel powerless to resolve. By offering the child a space and providing a few simple…
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Vocal Toning and Energy Alignment
This is an excerpt from Positive Health Online Issue 179 – February 2011. The full article can be found at: Vocal Toning and Energy Alignment My interest in the voice and creative expression led to training in Speech and Language Therapy, deepening my understanding of the mechanics of speech, the nature of impairment and its impact…