Dip. Curative Education,
Dip. Creative Speech and Drama
Rudolf Steiner
Kate Roth, second from the right
Dorothy Heathcote
Publications:
Articles about Louise's work :
Presentations at Conferences:
Research/ Evidence Base:
''The children in my class use more language during Lis'n Tell than at any other time during the week'. Senior Teacher of children with severe learning disabilities, Grove Park School, Crowborough.
Please contact Louise for more details.
Radio:
Recordings:
Dip. Creative Speech and Drama
- Louise grew up in Warwickshire, and developed a love of drama.
- She grew to love languages and art.
- Her father was a GP in Stratford, and treated the actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company for nearly 30 years. There's more about her mother,who was a nurse, on the 'previous events' page.
- Louise combined her interests in languages and medicine and graduated in Speech Pathology and Therapeutics in 1982 from The Central School of Speech and Drama.
- She subsequently trained in Curative Education.
Rudolf Steiner
- The training she followed was originally innovated by Rudolf Steiner,1861-1925 in Switzerland. The course that Louise followed took place in a Camphill Community, (Ringwood Sheiling School) where she lived for fiveyears. At The Sheiling, Louise learnt from Curative Educator Penny Guy how Speech and Language Therapy can be a way of life, of communicating creatively in whatever situation, not just during a therapeutic session. Penny studied on the first postgraduate training for Speech and Language Therapists at Reading University, started by Prof. David Crystal.
- Louise went on to Botton Village, to work closely for several years with Kate Roth,Camphill Community co-founder, Speech and Drama Specialist.
Kate Roth, second from the right
- Louise learnt from Kate a rigour and insights that have proved invaluable in developing Lis'n Tell. Altogether, Louise lived in Camphill Communities for ten years, five with the children and five with adults, until 1994. During her time there, she took part in organising several international youth conferences, and represented Camphill at The Youth Section at The Goetheanum in Switzerland for two years.http://www.camphill.org.uk/
- The School of Storytelling was founded by Ashley Ramsden, over a decade ago at Emerson College,with Nancy Mellon founder of The School of Therapeutic Storytelling and actor and storyteller, Duncan Macintosh. It was the first full time training of its kind in the world. Louise was one of the original group of students to take this course. She now works as a guest voice and Storytelling tutor there.
- Sylvia Ashton Warner,1908-1984, whose life, work and writings have been an enormous inspiration.
Sylvia Ashton Warner
- Louise also trained for four years at Artemis School of Speech and Drama, East Grinstead, West Sussex.
- Recent work includes GASP, a Group to Aid and Support Parents of children with complex language disorders.
- Her storytelling work with Sure Start (Early Childhood Centre), Mothers in Margate was featured on BBC Radio Kent in Jan 07.
- In 2004 and 2005, Louise was invited to Canada to run projects with children and teenagers with learning disabilities,Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Asperger's Syndrome, their parents, Carers, Therapists and Teachers in Nova Scotia. She was invited by Kathleen and Kim purdey, founders of The Alexander Society, a charity inspired by their son Brendon.
- In December 06, Louise was invited to train the whole Department of Paediatric Speech and Language Therapists in East and Coastal Kent in Lis'n Tell. Following this, a Lis'n Tell trained Speech and Language Therapist began a pilot project in a primary school in Kent, including children with speech/language/communication difficulties through Lis'n Tell. It went so well, that together with the teachers, she is now hopes to introduce Lis'nTell as a pre-literacy strategy in classes throughout the school.
- Louise has run numerous introductory workshops for the National Health Service and County Councils. She has presented at Sure Start, the National Association of Professionals working with Language Impaired Children (NAPLIC) and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists national conferences.
- Dorothy Heathcote - the book about her work ''Drama as a Learning Medium'' changed my life! I started visiting her regularly while I lived in Middlesbrough, and she has been one of my greatest allies and mentors. Dorothy was born in 1926. Educated until age 14 in the local village school. From then until 19 years old worked as a weaver in a woolen mill. Between 19 and 21 years studied at "Northern Theatre School". The main emphasis being on theatre direction, dance and educational drama in schools. She was invited on to the staff of the school, and for two years taught teachers and business people on long part-time courses. At age 24 she was appointed to the University of Durham to teach Froebel methods to teachers and develop her own system of teaching and learning which has become known as "The Mantle of the Expert" system.
Dorothy Heathcote
- Louise recently ran a highly successful training day for Waldorf Kindergarten Teachers from the South of England on speech and language development and storytelling.
- To celebrate the Chinese New Year, she completed a project in a school for children with physical disabilities, working with them and training their teachers, based on the theme of an ancient Chinese Tale: ''The Eyes of the Dragon''
- In mid May to June 2007, Louise travelled to Singapore and Sydney, to run workshops and present at the Australian National Conference of Speech Pathology 2007 and The Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW.
Please see testimonials...
PLEASE SEE PREVIOUS EVENTS PAGE FOR FURTHER DETAILS
PLEASE SEE PREVIOUS EVENTS PAGE FOR FURTHER DETAILS
Publications:
Articles about Louise's work :
- 'Dragons, milestones....and Speech' - Profile in Therapy Weekly by Sue Mapp August 1992
- Storytelling for InclusionFeature on Lis'n Tell by Michael Jones in Special Children magazine, issue no 182 April/May 2008
- A Pinch of SaLT and Drama - Feature in SEN, by Jessica Streeting, The Journal for Special Needs Issue no 35 July/August 2008
- 'The Inclusive Storytelling Project' by Lis'n Tell trained Speech and Language Therapist, The Bulletin (Journal of The Royal College of Speechand Language Therapists), March, 2009
Presentations at Conferences:
- 1993 The Development of Speech and Language through Storytelling: Imagination, our strongest healer : The International Dorothy Heathcote Conference, Lancaster University, invited workshop.
- 2002 Story Works: National Association of Professionals concerned with Language Impaired Children, Language for Learning Conference, Oxford University March, invited workshop.
- 2002 Inclusive Storytelling: Narrative Conference at Connect - the Communication Disability Network, invited presentation.
- 2007 Lis'n Tell: Live Inclusive Storytelling with Children with Complex Communication Challenges, National Australian Conference of Speech Pathology, Sydney, May
- 2008 Lis'n Tell: The Story so Far, London SIG on ASD, City University, London, March, invited talk.
- 2009 Closing Keynote address at Royal Borough of Kingston Annual SEN Conference, opening address given by John Bercow MP, invited talk.
Research/ Evidence Base:
''The children in my class use more language during Lis'n Tell than at any other time during the week'. Senior Teacher of children with severe learning disabilities, Grove Park School, Crowborough.
- In 2005 I undertook an evaluative research project in association with the postgraduate research department of Brighton Sussex Medical school. This helped me to identify many of the elements that hinder and help Lis'n Tell work.
- The results were presented to the London SIG in ASD at City University in March 2008.
- In 2009, the process of an inclusive storytelling project in an infants school carried out by a Lis'n Tell trained SaLT, Rebekah Dwyer were published in March 2009. The results were encouraging in terms of confidence and increase in overall motivation and communication of the children involved.
- Lis'n Tell is credited with being the inspiration for RAP-Reciprocal Active Participation, created by the staff of The Little Group, a nursery in Epsom for children with ASD.
- Follow up evaluations from SaLTs and Teachers who have attended trainings during 2007/8/9 are being collated and analysed. They include reports of increase in motivation, attention development, vocabulary learning, spoken verb and sentence use in a variety of learners with Speech, Language and Communication Needs,(SLCN).
Please contact Louise for more details.
Radio:
- 2009 Storytelling and Interviews, Radio Leith FM, August 09, during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
- 2007 Lis'n Tell with Sure Start Mothers featured on BBC Radio Kent January 2007
- 1992 Interview on BBC Radio Cleveland, 1992
Recordings:
- CD - ''The Dust and the Sunlight'': Poetry Recitation with William Radice of Tagore's Gitanjali set to music and singing, produced by award winning Indian director Debashish Raychaudhuri 2009
