Lis'n Tell - Live Inclusive Storytelling - Speech and Language Therapy

Welcome

to Lis'n Tell:

image courtesy of SLT Catherine Hui

Lis'n Tell at The V and A Museum of Childhood on World Autism Awareness Day April 2012

Lis'n Tell, an approach to developing listening, speech, language and communication

through storytelling,

with

Louise Coigley

MRCSLT HPCreg MASLTIP

Speech and Language Therapist

Storyteller

CONTACT: lfc@lisntell.com

''Lis'n Tell is a bridge to literacy'' - Rainbow Court Training and Outreach Centre

the next Part 1 intensive:

Over more than twenty years, Louise has developed a dynamic,

imaginative and versatile approach to communication development through storytelling.

Spontaneous intentional communication from children/students is encouraged and inspired and then specific communication, speech, language and social skills aims are facilitated through Lis'n Tell.

Speech and Language Therapists, parents and organizations have come back again and again for training and mentoring because they find it releases their creativity and the skills of the children and adults they live with or work with...

Clients have included:

The Primary Care Trusts of:

South Tees

North Tees

Redbridge

Lambeth

Kingston

Brent

Hampshire

Islington

Speech and Language Therapy Special Interest Groups in:

Staffordshire

Manchester

Chichester

London

Surrey

Special Schools:

Paray House, London

The Sheiling Camphill School, Ringwood

The Pace Centre, Aylesbury

Glebe School, Bromley

Oakely School, Tunbridge Wells

ICAN Meath School

Brookfields School, Hertfordshire

Percy Hedley Foundation, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Danecourt School, Kent

The Sheiling Camphill School, Ringwood, Hampshire

The Pennine Camphill Community, Wakefield

Valence School for Children with Physical Disabilities, Westerham

Steiner Schools:

Hebden Bridge

York

Ringwood

Forest Row

Kings Langley School

International:

The government of Singapore, to work with parents to inspire them to use more of their imagination with their children
The Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarrie University, Sydney Australia
The Association of Logopaedists, Athens, Greece
Proseggisi, Athens, Greece (Lis'n Tell part 1 for Speech and Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists)
The Alexander Society, Nova Scotia
The Institute of Pedagogical Training, Witten Annen, Germany
The Department of Health, Malta

Others include:

The Universities of Greenwhich Medway and Plymouth - where I teach my method of storytelling to speech and language therapy students
Sure Start centres in Margate - where my work with young Mums was featured on BBC Radio Kent
The lovely SLTs at Little Chatterboxes from Speechbox Therapy
The Lifeways family summer conference at Emerson College in Sussex, for several years running to give storytelling workshops to parents
The V and A Museum of Childhood
Buxton Children's Festival

Lis'n Tell facilitates the creativity of therapist(s),parents,co-professionals and students with complex communication needs - the listeners who become co-tellers.

Based in Sussex where Louise works with individual children and groups, she travels throughout the UK and abroad to deliver trainings and perform storytelling and poetry.

She teaches Lis'n Tell on the postgraduate speech and language therapy training at Greenwich Medway University, and has worked for education and health departments in Greece, Malta, Nova Scotia and Singapore.

photo by SLT Catherine Hui

Lis'n Tell with children with autism and their families at The V and A Museum of Childhood April 2nd 2012

World Autism Awareness Day

'FAB, my daughter loved it, amazing how Louise engaged so many autistic children she had never met before'-parent
'Relaxing'-parent
'Loved it -it was all about ME!' -young boy

Lis'n Tell and
Talking Grasshoppers:

click here and scroll down for Louise's article in the Spring Issue of the International School of Storytelling Newsletter

Louise works nationally and internationally, training parents and speech and language therapists and associated professionals.

"The session was a knockout! It gave me so much to think about...I'll need days if not years to process it. Some people are working on the surface, but your work has such depth and resonance that it is really important that more people know about it."

Dr Norman Alm, School of Computing, Researcher in Augmentative and Alternative Communication(AAC), University of Dundee,who attended one of the Lis'n Tell workshop at the Australian National Conference of Speech Pathology, May 07.

In his Keynote speech, at the Australian National Conference of Speech Pathology, Sydney May 07, Dr Alm described how, 'making gestures help us to think'.

"Louise Coigley's dedication to her craft, her understanding and love of story and people result in a uniquely empathic, entertaining performer, workshop leader who uses stories as seamless healers.

She has a dynamic and infectious warmth. I would heartily recommend her to anyone seeking to bring storytelling alive in a profound and enlightening way.

To know her and her work over the years has been an inspiration''.

David D. Campbell,Storyteller, Poet, Writer and Broadcaster

Louise is registered with the Health Professionals Council,

you can check this on this link

The evidence of how storytelling can support literacy skills abounds:

''Students are better able to move from oral to literate language styles if they have had positive experiences of hearing and retelling stories during pre-school years...''.
C. E. Westby 1991 - Learning to Talk and Talking to Learn

and for children with Speech Language and communication Needs (SLCN), storytelling can help literacy development at any age...Paray House School in London recently commissioned Lis'n Tell training for all teaching staff in order to promote and enhance their approach to literacy with their students...

''Engaging...stimulating
and refreshing...You are doing important work in the bringing together of art and science''.

Lyn Darnley, Head of Voice and Artist Development, The Royal Shakespeare Company, January 2008

Louise was in the top 5 Hit List of Childrens' Storytellers Shows at the International Edinburgh Fringe Arts Festival August 2009!:

Featured in ''My Working Life'' in July's Royal College of Speech and Language Therapist magazine: The Bulletin!

More about Lis'n Tell

Louise says:

''Lis'n Tell evolved through my work with children and adults with special needs, with whom I lived for ten years.

I learnt how to tell a story and include, affirm and develop their responses. They taught me how to become more sensitive and inventive.

During this time I realised how storytelling can reach people with special needs, like no other medium can...

The principles and approach of Lis'n Tell can be applied to children and adults with a very wide variety of communication challenges.

Lis'n Tell works through rhythm and role, rhyme, repetition and ritual. It employs sensory and simple voice and gesture techniques which help the teller get to and convey the heart of the story to the hearts of the listeners.

This intensively inclusive method facilitates,involves and expands the verbal and non verbal responses of the listeners, who evolve as tellers in their own unique ways''.

There are as many ways of telling a story as there are people in the world.

Louise Coigley MRCSLT MHPC
Specialist Speech and Language Therapist
Lis'n Tell: Live Inclusive Storytelling