Speakers

Sandy Chappell has been a Paediatric Speech and Language Therapist for over 30 years, working both for the NHS and in independent practice. She specialises in working with pre- school and primary school children who have speech and language disorders.

Sandy’s NHS roles have included Head of Paediatrics and Advisor in Child Language. Her practice, Chatterbox Speech and Language Therapy, is based in North Yorkshire.

Her book, How to Raise a Chatterbox, is a parents’ guide to speech and language development in children aged 0-5 and includes hundreds of ideas for screen-free activities.

Sandy is a member of the Health Professionals for Safer Screens campaign group.

She is a speech and language advisor for the charity ‘Peeple’, which trains practitioners and parents in early child development and promotes everyday learning opportunities as the best way to support children’s speech, language and social skills.

She is a licensed Elklan tutor, running courses for early years’ staff, teachers, parents and carers covering all aspects of speech, language and communication.

She is also a registered provider of ‘DLD Together’ courses for parents and carers of children with Developmental Language Disorder.

Sandy has developed a programme called Talking Teams, to increase awareness of speech, language and communication needs in primary schools. She delivers training sessions to parents, staff and Year 5/6 children to help them better support younger children in their school who are struggling with communication.

She is passionate about early speech and language development and knows the impact that good communication skills have on academic achievement, mental health and wellbeing, and future life chances. She believes that these skills can best be developed by using everyday routines and simple play-based activities and avoiding the use of screens as much as possible.