Here goes....

Hello, my name is Sheila and I am the master franchisee for Smart Talkers India. I have always had a passion for communication and I know from my previous career as global training consultant, that this is the main key to success in any field. I became even more interested after the birth of my son as I became both fascinated and marvelled by the process of language learning. He is now fluent in three languages, which we take for granted but actually should be recognised and  celebrated.

I became involved in Smart Talkers as I saw an article about them on a  British working mothers website. They had been set up by Libby Hill who it turns out thinks very similarly on lots of things to me! She is a speech and language therapist by background who became very concerned that the world is getting so visually based that children's skills are not as good as they used to be. This is a international problem: spoken language skills are the building blocks for written language i.e. reading and writing so that if there is a delay in the speech, language and communication skills this will affect educational progress.  Parents are not always aware of this. The groups are designed to optimise the child's potential using stories, activities, puppets, songs and games.

I will be blogging on all aspects of children's language and early educational development as well as sharing Smart Talkers India news and activities.