Nick Dux and Resilience Coaching supports teams in Education to empower the inner voice of their children through Transformative Communication. Through coaching education professionals, Nick’s approach helps reduce barriers to learning, builds Resilience and sustainably changes behaviour and outcomes for the better.

He was part of an education based Mental Health team for 14 years and has a degree in Human Communication. For over 4 years, Nick has been self-employed, working with schools to build an ethos of Resilience and problem solving as a whole school approach and supporting Head teachers to build Resilience within their team of professionals.

His book, ‘It's All Narrative’ was published in April 2022. Written for parents and Education professionals, the book details how to build Resilience in children through Transformative Communication.

Dr Inas Ismail
Dr Inas Ismail is the co-founder of Autsera, helping children become emotionally intelligent, expressive, and socially engaged through innovative, science-led, and accessible game apps. She won the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2023, and has earned her Engineering PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr Ismail had a career in media production, before co-founding Autsera, where she takes Autsera’s children apps from user-research and design, through product development and testing, to product launch, and onboarding users.

Dr Ismail is passionate about children empowerment through inclusive tech, education, and gamification.

Omar Massoud
Omar is a chartered engineer, experienced entrepreneur and co-founder of Autsera. Prior to Autsera, Omar founded Bridjes, an engineering and technology business consultancy, where he provided consultancy services to household names such as Marks & Spencer, Heathrow Airport and WWF, as well as ambitious SME’s and startups.

Omar worked in the UK, Egypt and the USA, and delivered projects in over 20 countries. He co-authored “The Business Growth System”, providing a structured system to grow businesses. He delivered workshops and spoke at various business events in the UK and overseas.

Omar co-founded Autsera to help children with special needs improve their social and communication skills. He leads on business management and strategy. He managed and delivered multiple R&D projects, including Innovate UK funded projects. Omar currently leads the development of Autsera’s new product that uses advanced speech recognition technology to help children improve their speech and communication.

Helen is a speech and language therapist with 20 years’ experience supporting children with Special Educational Needs (SEN). She is the AAC service Lead for Barnsley Assistive Technology Team, which delivers specialised AAC services across Yorkshire and Humberside.

She is also a Trustee for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (country rep North England).

She is currently writing a book ‘Working with AAC’ – due out in 2025.

Dr Joanne Cleland is a Speech and Language Therapist with an interest in clinical phonetics and articulatory analysis (mostly ultrasound tongue imaging). Her area of expertise is visual biofeedback techniques for the assessment and treatment of motor speech disorders. She is interested in research which looks at speech disorders in children, particularly in children with developmental disabilities. She is interested in motor speech disorders in autism spectrum conditions, Down syndrome, cleft lip and palate and persistent speech sound disorders.

Dr Joanne Cleland has been at the University of Strathclyde since 2015 where she teaches on the undergraduate Speech and Language Pathology Course. She is a HCPC registered Speech and Language Therapist with a PhD in Communication Disorders.

Charlotte Davies is a Director of Fit 2 Learn. She originally trained in Finance, but then moved into teaching when working in the Far East. She holds the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Through Daleen Smith she came to understand the link between child development and cognitive skills. In 2012 she founded Fit 2 Learn; and subsequently trained as a Tomatis Consultant. In 2016 she won the prize for best case study at the Tomatis Paris Convention.

Sophie is an award winning specialist speech and language therapist and owner of The Nest Therapy Ltd that includes specialist nursery provision for early years children with SEND combining outstanding education and intensive early intervention rated OUTSTANDING by OFSTED.

The Nest therapy LTD provides independent assessment and interventions for children with a range of speech, language and communication needs to individual families, nurseries and schools.

Sophie offers ADOS-2 and ADI-R trained completing regular and robust Autism Spectrum Disorder assessment and diagnostic services as part of a multidisciplinary team.

Dr. Kate Rowley is a Deaf researcher, specialising in language and literacy development of deaf children. She is interested in promoting bilingualism & multilingualism in deaf children and adults.

She grew up in a deaf family in Cornwall. She read Deaf Studies at Bristol for her BA degree, with further studies at University College London for which she completed her PhD research (Experimental Psychology) there in 2018. At Wolverhampton, she was their lecturer in Deaf Studies (2020-2021).

Now, she works at DCAL, University College London as Lecturer in Deafness, Cognition and Language since 2021, with her ESRC research project on deaf children's language comprehension.

Dr Kathryn Murray is passionate about creating opportunities to give children the best possible start in life. She is grateful to be the founder of Future Strong Education Consultancy, based in Australia.

She is an environment design expert and the creator of Brain-SET Environments© Design Formula. Kathryn is an award-winning early childhood education specialist, highly sought-after public speaker, workshop facilitator and coach. She has written numerous articles on productive environments, teaching practices and parenting.

Kathryn works globally and uses her 40+ years of experience, research and intuition to support children, educators, teams, leaders and parents to be the best they can be.

Kathryn’s qualifications include Doctor of Education, Master of Education, Bachelor of Education, Diploma of Teaching (Preschool/Primary), Certificate IV in Training and Assessing and numerous certificates and awards.

“Being one of 6 boys I was always engaging with my brothers – whether it was down the river exploring, or building something in the backyard. It was all about challenge, risk and freedom.”

Keeping children curious, creative and confident through offering the adventurous childhood they deserve – this is the principle that elevates Lukas Ritson's play environments. Lukas believes that play should be a holistic experience for children – one that fosters connection, encourages resilience, and cultivates compassion. His innovative playground designs emphasise sustainable, quality materials, as they create a healthy stage for limitless learning opportunities.

His work has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of children Australia-wide and beyond. He has collaborated with a variety of childcare centres, schools, community gardens and nature play-based conferences. Lukas presented a TEDxUQ talk on the importance of play in February 2021 and has been an invited keynote speaker in Finland, the United States and across Australia.

Kirsty Godfrey
Kirsty Godfrey is one of His Majesty's Inspectors. She is a qualified teacher and has worked in senior leadership positions, including headship, in a range of schools for over twenty years. She has also worked as an educational consultant. Her last post before joining Ofsted was as the head of primary in an all-through school. This post involved setting up the primary provision from scratch and further developed her interest and expertise in early years. Kirsty’s current position is Senior His Majesty’s Inspector for Early Education in Ofsted’s curriculum unit. This role is focused on overseeing the development, quality and delivery of early education curriculum training for inspectors, and the development of thematic reports. It builds on her previous policy and curriculum roles as specialist advisor and subject lead for early reading.

Sam Sleeman-Boss
Sam Sleeman-Boss is one of Ofsted’s Early Years Regulatory Inspectors. She is a qualified early years practitioner and Children’s Centre leader, who started her career as a childminder. Sam has considerable experience of inspection and regulation of registered early years settings and now works in Ofsted's early education policy team, focusing on Ofsted’s ‘Best start in life’ strategic priority, providing inspector insight and support to policy colleagues and inspectors on early education curriculum and the education inspection framework (EIF).

Rebecca Skinner
Rebecca Skinner qualified as a Speech and Language Therapist in 2001 and is the Director of Speech Therapy and author for Thriving Language. She also works as a Specialist Speech and Language Therapist for the NHS.

Becky Poulter Jewson
Becky Poulter Jewson has over 25 year’s experience working with children and families as a qualified Early Years Lead and is the Director of Early Years and author for Thriving Language. Starting as a sole charge nanny for newborn babies, Becky worked in Deputy and Lead Early Years roles, owned her own nursery and then became Early Years Lead for Cheltenham Children's Centres where she worked with and professionally met her business partner Rebecca Skinner which led to creating Thriving Language.

Becky is involved in research to enable better understanding of early years and motivations. Her expertise is free-flow environments and building and leading teams of early years professionals to recognise their own worth, leading to understanding that early years should be recognised professionally as ‘Brain scientists' she continues to empower professionals to see the impact they make daily to future societal outcomes and children's lives. Becky is a published Author and writer and a visiting lecturer University of Gloucestershire.

Dr. Shelley Stravitz is an acknowledged expert in the field of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). She works with families, clinicians, and educators. Dr. Shelley has seen that highly involved parents are the key element to moving their child with ASD, and their family, toward an optimal outcome.

Dr. Shelley recovered her own child diagnosed with severe autism and mental retardation—who she was told would never speak—by focusing on developmentally appropriate, relationship-based interventions. Dr. Shelley utilized specific interventions that resolved the underlying causes of her child’s unique ASD profile. As a result of this approach, her child lost all trace of his autism diagnosis and was able to progress in all areas of learning.

Over the last 30 years, her clinical work, family consultations, workshops, extensive research, and experience on numerous professional advisory boards gave her the knowledge to develop the ACERS Model, a multi-disciplinary model of autism recovery. Extensive research of Dr. Shelley’s work with families utilizing this model demonstrated that their children reached optimal outcomes.

Dr. Shelley earned her Doctorate in Educational Leadership for Change: ASD Optimal Outcomes and her Master of Science in Education: Motivating Learners. She has contributed her clinical expertise, research, group leadership, and multi-disciplinary experiences to numerous Advisory Boards and continues to be at the forefront of changing what is believed about and possible for children with autism. Prior to her own family's journey through severe autism, Dr. Shelley graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She is an experienced Pre-K-12 educator and a Masters-level teacher trainer.

Joanne Jones
Joanne Jones is a Consultant Speech and Language Therapist with more than 20 years’ experience of working with Early Years children in the NHS and as the founder of her own preschool.

She has helped more than 3,000 families in 32 countries – giving them the knowledge and tools needed to support their child's speech, language and communication needs.

Famous for her empowering speech therapy programme for late-talking children, ‘Can-Do’, Joanne also authored the Amazon best-seller ‘Ditch the Dummy: The Gentle Way’. A member of The Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists, Joanne has appeared on BBC Radio and ‘The One Show’.

Vicky Robinson
Vicky is a children's Occupational Therapist, specialising in children with sensory processing difficulties. She has worked with many families within both the NHS and private online therapy services, helping parents to meet their child's sensory needs. Vicky has worked collaboratively with EY settings, mainstream and special schools, to educate and support staff in the implementation of sensory processing strategies within the school environment.

Vicky has worked as a Highly Specialist Children's Occupational Therapist within the NHS for over 17 years and has completed her post-graduate training in Sensory Integration.

Tasha Bretten, from Boogie Mites, musical childhood supported her work as a Primary school teacher and was a factor for her to change to Early Years Music teaching after she attended Boogie Mites with her own children. She is passionate about her belief, founded on neuromusical evidence and experience, that regular opportunities for effective music making in the Early Years is the key to preparing children for Primary school, particularly providing strong foundations for literacy.

Tasha’s passion aligns very well with the mission of Boogie Mites – To share music knowledge, confidence and resources with practitioners and parents, to harness the brain boosting power of music each and every day. You Can Do It!

This additional – free – video from Neuromusical Researcher Dr Anita Collins explains the links between Music and pre-literacy skills
https://youtu.be/-PqNsv2OdSQ

Jennifer Ellison is a paediatric speech and language therapist who has worked in her NHS role for 14 years. She is a Regional Makaton Tutor, which means she has been through a rigorous training process with The Makaton Charity to gain a license to teach the Makaton Language Program including the use of Makaton signs and symbols.

Jen loved attending baby and toddler groups with her own two children. There are so many to choose from now but there are still none that focus specifically on speech, language and communication skills.

So, she started ‘Baby Signing Club’ when her two children were both in school. The uptake has been amazing! She didn’t realise that so many families would be as keen as her on learning about infant language development!

Jen now runs several sessions for a range of babies, toddlers and preschoolers. She felt that a name change would better reflect the younger group of children that she supports – so her popular little group was transformed in to ‘Little Talkers.’

https://makaton.org/

Dr. Lynn Williams is Associate Dean in the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences at East Tennessee State University and Professor in the Department of Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology. Her clinical and research focus is primarily with children with speech sound disorder.

She developed an intervention model, multiple oppositions, and conducted efficacy studies, which has been funded by the NIH NIDCD. The NIH also supported the development of computer- and app-based resources to facilitate speech-language pathologists’ implementation of intervention (SCIP: Sound Contrasts in Phonology).

Her current research and publications have focused on developing a Phonological Intervention Taxonomy (with Elise Baker, Sharynne McLeod, and Rebecca McCauley) to understand the components that comprise an intervention. She is also currently under contract with Brookes Publishing to develop an age-appropriate assessment tool, PEEPS: Profiles of Early Expressive Phonological Skills, with Carol Stoel-Gammon for toddlers who have a small sound inventory and vocabulary and are suspected to be late talkers.

Dr. Williams has an impressive track record of over 175 publications and presentations and three textbooks; the most recent is the 2nd edition of Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children with Sharynne McLeod and Rebecca McCauley that was published in 2021 by Brookes Publishing.

She has served as associate editor of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools and served two terms as the associate editor of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

Dr. Williams has been a frequent presenter at numerous state, national, and international conferences. She is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Distinguished Fellow of the National Academies of Practice, was an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and was the 2021 ASHA President.

Find Dr Lynn Williams’ professional profile here: https://www.etsu.edu/crhs/aslp/speechpathology/faculty/williaml.php

Social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-williams-112b6222/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lynnwilliamsslp/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LynnWilliamsSLP

Books:
Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children https://products.brookespublishing.com/Interventions-for-Speech-Sound-Disorders-in-Children-Second-Edition-P1223.aspx

PEEPS book: https://products.brookespublishing.com/Profiles-of-Early-Expressive-Phonological-Skills-PEEPS-Forms-P1478.aspx

PEEPS Assessment kit: PEEPS™ Assessment Kit (brookespublishing.com)

Further reading:
The special issue of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology which has details about the Sustainable Development Goals is below and SDG18: Communication for All. The lead article that summarises the content and the entire special issue are free to access:

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/25/1

McLeod, S., & Marshall, J. (2023). Communication for all and the Sustainable Development Goals. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2022.2160494

SCIP: Sound Contrasts in Phonology https://scipapp.com/
Baker and McLeod (2011):
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20844274/

Interprofessional Advocacy for Health Care Equity
The time is now to join across disciplines to close gaps in care access and outcomes.
https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/leader.FTP.26112021.8/full/

The association between atypical speech development and adolescent self-harm. McAllister, Skinner, Hayhow, Heron, & Wren (2023). Journal of Speech-Language-Hearing Research, https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-21-00652.

In support of a public health approach to late talking. Neiling & Cutshaw (2023). https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_AJSLP-22-00357.

The special issue of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology which has details about the Sustainable Development Goals is below. The lead article that summarises the content and the entire special issue are free to access:

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/25/1.

McLeod, S., & Marshall, J. (2023). Communication for all and the Sustainable Development Goals. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2022.2160494