Testimonials

What parents said:

Sumera has worked with my son since 2023, and the progress has been remarkable. She brings patience, warmth, and genuine skill to every session, always tailoring her approach to my son’s specific needs, while at the same time making it fun and engaging.

Her communication with our family has been consistent and clear, keeping us informed and involved in the process. I recommend her without hesitation to any family seeking a dedicated, effective speech therapist.

A & A, parents of A, aged 7 with speech sound issues

Before hiring Sumera, our two and a half year old hadn't spoken a single word. In the very first session, he spoke 3 words which we were astounded by. Sumera was extremely flexible, patient and easy to work with, our child genuinely looked forward to her coming round.

I would highly recommend Sumera if you too have a child who has a speech delay. We are truly grateful to have found Sumera, she is a treasure!

J and B, parents of 3 year old L, SE London

I cannot recommend Sumera highly enough. When he began therapy, he was almost nonverbal and struggled significantly with communication. Through her expertise, patience, and deep understanding of neurodivergent children, he has made extraordinary progress as he is now thriving academically at school and communicating with confidence.

She has an incredible ability to connect with children, meet them where they are, and gently but effectively help them grow. She not only supported his speech and language development but also strengthened his self-belief and independence.

We are beyond grateful for the role she has played in his journey. If you are looking for a knowledgeable, compassionate, and truly dedicated speech therapist, I wholeheartedly recommend her.

C, parent of J

Sumera has been incredible support to my daughter. She quickly built relationship with her and made sessions lots of fun and with incredible results. Our daughter quickly started to increase her vocabulary and put together full sentences and all that through play and strong relationship.

We cannot thank her enough and once again highly recommend to any parents whose children have a general speech delay or more specific diagnosis.

E & T, parents of N, aged 3 with a significant language acquisition issue having gone from pre-verbal to conventional language!

We are incredibly grateful to Sumera for the wonderful support she has provided to our son. From the very beginning, she has been kind, approachable, and always available whenever we needed guidance or reassurance.

Sumera not only offered valuable insights into our little boy’s speech and language development, but she also gave us the confidence and peace of mind we needed as parents. Her friendly and supportive approach made every session a positive experience for our family. In fact, our little boy would look forward to his sessions with Sumera with so much excitement, which speaks volumes about the warm and encouraging environment she created.

Since working with her, we have seen such meaningful improvements in our son’s communication skills. We will be forever thankful for her dedication, expertise, and genuine care.

We wholeheartedly recommend her to any family looking for a compassionate and knowledgeable speech and language therapist.

J and K, parents of H, aged 3 with an expressive language delay, SE London

Sumera is warm, she put my child and I at ease and provided helpful and easy to understand advice. I trust and appreciate her expertise and feel lucky that our daughter has benefited from her guidance and therapy.

S A, mum of M, aged 2 and pre-verbal at the time of referral, now 6 years old and a chatterbox, Streatham

Working with Sumera over the past year has been a truly positive experience. She provided us with practical tips and tools we could use at home. There were times when progress felt slow, but Sumera was always there with words of encouragement and clear, constructive feedback. She told us S. would be ready for Reception class, and she was absolutely right. He’s now a confident, chatty little boy, and we couldn’t be more grateful.

A & P, Parents of S, aged 2 at the point of referral

I contacted Sumera to help us with my 4 year old daughter, who has unclear speech. She brought to our attention a matter we did not even consider to be the reason for our daughter's difficulty with speech sounds (hearing problems). My daughter is now scheduled to have grommets inserted for glue ear, which will hopefully improve her speech and her school life greatly.

We are so relieved and grateful to Sumera for helping us.

K, mum of 4 year old with significant speech sound issues.

From our very first contact through to the conclusion of our sessions, Sumera treated us with not only the utmost professionalism but also genuine care and compassion. She was warm, approachable, and entirely non-judgemental, which made it easy for us to place our trust in her guidance.

Sumera went above and beyond in supporting our family - travelling across London to carry out an in-depth assessment and providing tailored strategies to help our child. Her support came at a time when, as parents, we felt overwhelmed and uncertain. Thanks to her, we felt empowered and better equipped to navigate our next steps.

Thank you, Sumera, for everything you have done for our family. Your support has made a lasting difference.

T & V, parents of 3 year old Y with language delay and social communication differences, Pinner

We approached Sumera to assess our son with his speech and language development. A very thorough assessment was carried out and a detailed report provided, which not only helped us as parents to identify our sons needs but the report was instrumental in the EHCP process.
Sumera provided so much support and gave us necessary advice. She made time for our many questions and was able to answer all giving us clarity.
We are grateful to have found Sumera and appreciate all the har work and effort put in to get the right support for our son.
I have and would recommend Sumera to anyone - Thank you Sumera.

From S, mum of A, Bromley

My 5 year old son undertook an assessment with Sumera. She spent an hour with him at our house and a morning watching and assessing him at school. I cannot believe that in such a short amount of time, she was able to 'see' our child. Her report was the first one that my husband and I have read that describes him and his needs perfectly, something other professionals have struggled with (as his presentation is variable). We feel we are in a much better place to support him, armed with an accurate report with clear and robust strategies for implementation.

From C & J, 5 year old G's parents, S E London

Sumera’s guidance and support has been invaluable for our little one’s journey and for us as a family over the past 6 months. Sumera has provided us with amazing tools and always fully engaged with our little one at our sessions. Her calmness, patience and empathy were always much appreciated. Sumera offered fantastic advice and was always there to listen when we needed it. Words can’t express our gratitude, thank you so much Sumera!!

C, mum of 3 year old P experiencing social communication and language issues, SE London

Sumera assessed my daughter when she was 5 years old, after a very negative experience in Reception. Sumera was brilliant with my daughter and after the assessment, did a series of sessions which corrected her speech sound issues. More than that Sumera gave me hope and recognised my daughter for the abilities she had.

I had no reservations in going back to Sumera 2 years later to have a fuller speech and language assessment done (attention, spoken language, comprehension, attention and social skills). The report was very detailed and it was lovely to read the areas she had also scored highly in. This has really helped to get the right support in place.

I’d recommend Sumera to anyone and would go back to her for help in the future.

Parents of X, aged 7

I can’t praise Sumera enough (but I will try to put it in words!). Sumera has worked with my 4 year old son for over 16 months. He has developmental delay as well as structural issues with his palate (requiring more surgery) and attention deficits, so there is much to work on. Sumera is amazing with him and he has made lots of tangible progress with her, both in terms of his speech and his attention. Her ability to engage him (she has the most wonderful bag of tricks that never fail to excite and a very expressive face!) is second to none. Added to that Sumera is an extremely warm and enthusiastic person, but able to be firm with him when needed. She has worked brilliantly with his teachers and teaching assistants to help them to help him. She is dedicated to achieving the best results possible. I am also sure that her well-crafted reports about his needs, are in no small part how we were able to secure one-to-one local authority Education Health Care Plan funding for him at school. Put simply, she is a marvel, and I thank my lucky stars that we found her when we did. If you can get her, snap her up!

T, 4 year old E’s mum, West Norwood

We worked with Sumera to support our then 2 year old for over 2 years. He has a severe speech impairment as a result of brain injury and Sumera was able to teach us strategies to support his speech development, making sessions fun and engaging for him and us and we clearly saw the improvements and progress made as a result. Sumera is supportive, really positive and so encouraging and gave us a lot of hope. Working with Sumera was the best thing we have done to support our son and his progress.

B & A, parents of 4 year old K, South Norwood

Sumera is an exceptional speech language therapist. She’s been providing my autistic son speech, language and social skill therapy from two years ago since he was 2.5 years old, non-verbal. Her expertise to pull out my son’s full potential each session has guided us as a family to accomplish where he is now (very much verbal and social) and we are forever grateful for all her expertise, professionalism and dedication. I could not recommend her enough.

C & W-S, parents of 4 year old J, East Dulwich

Sumera has been such an amazing support to both my son and our family whilst on this journey. H has come on leaps and bounds in the year we’ve worked together and he adores his sessions with Sumera. Not only has she supported H, she’s supported us as a family in how to best navigate the world of neurodiversity and has made the journey a lot less lonely. We wouldn’t be without her and I look forward to the day H can tell her that himself!

A & L, 2 year old H’s parents, Brockley

Sumera has been a brilliant partner for us and for our daughter. Sumera’s deep subject matter expertise combines with her wealth of experience to offer huge support to both our daughter and us as parents. We have found our SLT sessions a lifeline in the hardest moments due to Sumera’s pragmatism and positivity. She is always enthusiastic and laden with toys and tricks that our daughter adores. We are certain that our daughter’s progress has been driven by our sessions with Sumera. Sumera has also been able to offer our nursery support with tools and tips to support our daughter in that environment too. We are so grateful for Sumera and we know our daughter is too.

N & S, 2 year old T’s parents, Herne Hill

We have been working with Sumera for over a year, having contacted her when our 2.5 year old daughter was displaying challenges with her speech (non-verbal) and social communication. Sumera carried out a thorough assessment and identified that our daughter had social communication issues. We embarked on fortnightly sessions and within a few months we were able to bring our daughter out of her “own world” and greatly improve her the way in which she interacts with the world around her. A year on, our daughter has significantly progressed with her speech. She loves her sessions with Sumera and as a family we consider Sumera as one of the key people in our team! She has provided excellent advice to us along the way and we hope to have her on our team for years to come.

C & J, 3 year old T’s parents, Beckenham

We are very grateful to have Sumera as our speech and language therapist. We have been working with Sumera for two years now as our nearly 4 year daughter is non-verbal. The sessions are always reassuring and Sumera has helped to identify the issues that need to be addressed, whilst offering practical advice and support. Sumera brings a positive attitude and gives us the much needed encouragement to persevere. The sessions are targeted and effective whilst being fun and engaging for our daughter.

D & K, 3 year old H’s parents, Orpington

When I first realised my daughter was struggling with her speech, I felt completely lost until I met Sumera. Sumera exudes warmth and kindness and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to my daughter’s development which has been incredible. Sumera invested so much time to understand the individual needs of my daughter and helped me navigate my way through speech therapy as a parent. Whether it was suggesting helpful tips and resources or providing me with much needed reassurance at times, I feel incredibly grateful to have met Sumera and everything she has done for my daughter.

J, 4 year old B’s mum, West Wickham

We first met Sumera when our son was almost 2 and we were worried that he wasn’t talking but also that there were possible signs of social communication challenges. At first, Sumera set us up with simple exercises we could do to encourage some basic first words (more, ready, steady, “go” etc….) but after a few months of no real change, we decided a fortnightly session with Sumera was right for our son and they’ve been working together for 2 years now. Both of our children totally adore Sumera and it’s always the highlight of the day when they see her. The toys and resources she uses are always varied and fun and put our son at ease instantly. He eagerly watches out of the window for her and can’t wait to see what she’s arrived with each time. Sumera has also guided us through the very complicated system of applying for an EHCP and written detailed supporting reports after observations she’s done of our son at nursery over the last 2 years. She has been such a rock to our family through some very challenging and emotional weeks and we will be forever grateful that we found her. She recently visited my son at nursery for an observation. On the walk home from nursery, he turned to me and said “Mummy, I saw Sumera today! I was so glad to see her.” This is the same child who had no words at the age of 2 and only said mummy for the first time after he turned 3. We’ve come such a long way and I strongly believe that Sumera has played such an important part in that journey. I will always continue to highly recommend her to families that our worried about their child’s speech.

H & T, 4 year old L’s parents, Brockley

We have found working with Sumera incredibly helpful in supporting our young son who is autistic with complex epilepsy. She has helped to demystify some of theoretical advice we have received from the NHS practitioners - suggesting pragmatic strategies to practice with him that centre around play and things that motivate him. We can see progress in his communication development which had plateaued before we started working with Sumera. Having the right Speech and Language therapist is crucial - someone that genuinely cares about and empathises with your child. We could not recommend Sumera more.

A & D, parents of 4 year old L, West Norwood

Sumera has been a breath of fresh air in a journey that has been arduous and stressful for us as parents. Supporting our child through his ASD diagnosis has been challenging at times but the guidance and experience that Sumera has provided to our child, and to us, has been absolutely invaluable. She has formed a real bond with our son, which is no easy feat! She provides skilled therapy and advice and has taken our son from nonverbal and completely overwhelmed to a happy, engaged boy who is now verbal and communicating. He continues to make steady progress and it is all down to Sumera’s dedicated and consistent approach. Thank you Sumera!

N & M, parents of 4 year old N, Chislehurst

Sumera was involved with our daughter, preschool up to Year 1, was involved in our EHCP journey - our daughter’s speech, vocabulary, social communication skills and confidence grew and developed under Sumera’s intervention. Sumera is a skilled and experienced practitioner, our daughter loved her sessions. It made complete sense for us to approach Sumera when our son presented with delayed speech at 2 years old. She immediately developed rapport with our son, had a range of activities to support and extend his social communication skills - he is now in Reception and loves his weekly sessions - he’s developing, sustains and extending his receptive and expressive language skills, turn taking, social/peer communication. Our son has a diagnosis of autism. Sumera did our SLT assess report for our son’s EHCP. Sumera helped and supported us and our son’s teacher and TA with his transition into Reception. She provides weekly in school sessions to our son and in doing so also train’s and support his teacher and TA with strategies to support our son. Our son is doing amazingly well in mainstream school. We are happy to be approached to provide more in depth feedback if that’s helpful to other families.

Y-K & H, 4 year old H’s parents, East Dulwich

Since starting to work with Sumera, M’s development in areas which he has previously found challenging has been excellent. Having first established M’s developmental needs, Sumera has tailored sessions for M, which he absolutely loves. M’s social skills have developed, such that he is now more able to engage and collaborate with his peers (e.g. turn taking, sharing, patience). He is more able to articulate how he is feeling, although he is still developing some higher language on feelings, which Sumera is facilitating. M was accepted to the reception class of our desired school, and Sumera has been key to this working closely with M’s teachers and the school SEND lead to provide a supportive environment in which M is able to thrive.

N & L, 5 year old M’s parents, Bromley

We approached Sumera for support in helping us with our son’s speech delay and she has been invaluable in helping him make big improvements both in terms of speech and attention. Sumera has extensive knowledge and completely adapts to the child so that her therapy sessions are engaging and productive. Sumera consistently goes over and above what is required and we would thoroughly recommend her.

C & A, 5 year old R’s parents, Shortlands, Bromley

Sumera was recommended to me via a friend as we had noticed our son’s speech was delayed. She is a fantastic speech and language therapist and our son loves it when she comes to the house with her many toys and games. She is patient and engaging with him and he has come on so far with her help and support. Sumera has also been to his nursery and we are working together so he has some support when he goes to school.

C, mum of 4 year old J, West Wickham

Sumera came to our rescue after a lengthy break in any kind of speech therapy being available to children during the covid restrictions. Visiting our home and immediately putting our child at ease with games and fun activities, Sumera helped our child who had a very severe speech disorder make rapid progress. Sumera also helped support us to continue working with our child in between sessions to continue to make improvements to their speech sound clarity. In addition, Sumera was happy to provide our local authority SALT with comprehensive updates on our child’s progress and too prepared a summary for the school prior to starting Reception which really helped all those involved in such a crucial stage be on the same page and ready to support. We cannot thank Sumera enough for all the support that she has given our family.

A-M, mum of 5 year old O, Beckenham

Sumera worked with my son for the best part of a year. She used a variety of fun different learning activities which Noah thoroughly enjoyed. She is extremely interactive which is the perfect approach for young children with a short attention span. She took time to listen to my concerns and address the needs of my son. We only stopped our lessons because we moved out of the area. Would recommend Sumera on every occasion.

O, mum of 5 year old N, Sydenham

Sumera was recommended to me by my son’s school when I mentioned to them about his speech delay. She did a play-based initial assessment with him at our home and although my son (almost two years old at the time) did not really understand much English and was very shy, Sumera was really patient with him and eventually was able to engage him with the toys and activities. Her report and observations were detailed and professional. She also gave us a lot of useful advice on the techniques that we could use daily to support my son’s speech development. We had a few months of therapy sessions with her and Sumera has always been very responsive and easy to work with. I feel very comfortable asking her anything and she would always give a very professional and constructive response with any queries that I have. Highly recommend to any parent looking for a speech therapist for their child.

S & J, 3 year old E’s parents, Herne Hill

We were on the waiting list for S&L Therapy and then Covid hit. No one was able to offer any help. I contacted Sumera and within days she found the time to fit us in for an assessment and then putting a plan in place for our twin boys age 3 years 2 months then. The boys had their own twin language and were hardly making any sentences or stringing more than 2 words together. Sumera’s one to one sessions which each boy was always fun and kept them engaged. She also taught us many skills to adapt in our day to days lives in order to help the boys’ speech. Roll on 6 months, whilst the boys still have room to learn and improve on their speech clarity they are significantly chattier and very confident now communicating verbally in English! We cannot recommend Sumera enough.

J, mum of twins M and M, aged 6 years, Bromley

We have worked with Sumera for over two years now and have found her to be absolutely wonderful for our two daughters. Both of them have made excellent progress: in terms of their clarity of speech but also in terms of their confidence. I can always see when they are working through a shape that Sumera has taught them and they do so patiently and happily. Sumera’s gentle but highly effective method of combining play with therapy has resulted in the girls really enjoying their sessions and us seeing real results. She always updates us as to the sounds the girls are working so that we can help to practice at home, and she’s been a cheerleader as well as a friend to us as we navigate the early years of parenthood. We’re so grateful for her efforts and can’t recommend her highly enough.

N, mum of A aged 4 & L aged 7, Herne Hill

Our daughter’s communication skills have developed far beyond what we could have hoped for and Sumera has taught us valuable skills to get the very best from her. We can’t place a value on the help and support that Sumera has provided to us.

A-M, mum of 4 year old E, Sydenham

Sumera has been a pleasure to work with. My son loves interacting/playing with her and we are both always excited to see what new toys are on offer to play with each session. She is very friendly, patient and reassuring but at the same time tries to install patience in the children through play. Always happy to answer any questions we may have outside of the sessions. My son wasn’t saying any actual words at all at just under 2.5 years old and we saw an instant improvement after the very first session due to simple techniques/words and way of play. He has improved so much since meeting Sumera over the past 9 months and although needs to work on clarity in some places, he is now speaking using sentences, making observations and asking questions. We cannot thank her enough and she really will be missed!

M, mum of 4 year old T, Kidbrooke

Sumera has been providing SLT therapy to our 6 year old on and off over the last year and a half. In that time, we have seen his speech and confidence improve. We know there is still room for progress but feel we have been given the tools to work on this as a family going forward.

S, mum of 5 year old J, Brockley

We contacted Sumera after becoming concerned that our two year old son was still only able to speak very few words and was not joining words together. Our initial conversation with Sumera was extremely helpful. Sumera took the time to listen to all our concerns about our son’s communication and later came to assess him at home. Sumera has a very warm and approachable manner. Our son, despite being normally very reserved, had an immediate rapport with Sumera and loved playing with the many toys she brought with her to play with. Sumera was able to reassure us and give us techniques to help our son develop his expressive language. Sumera didn’t recommend that immediate therapy sessions were needed for our son but instead gave us the tools to work with our son ourselves to try and develop his language.

Only a week after the assessment, we are seeing some positive signs of improvement and our son is already using a couple of new words and showing more willingness to try and communicate. We are very pleased we contacted Sumera and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to other families seeking support with their children’s communication needs.

B & G, parents of T Forest Hill

I can’t recommend Sumera highly enough. Our twin boys were noticeably delayed with their speech and language and we were getting very concerned. We hadn’t had this experience with our older daughter so we knew we needed some help. From the very first session with Sumera, we noticed a huge difference. She seemed to somehow unlock them and from there we have watched their confidence grown day by day. Sumera taught us key skills so that we could continue their progress between sessions and within 6 weeks we’d made some big leaps forward. Her sessions with the boys were always super fun and her extensive resources kept them highly engaged throughout. She even helped me make home resource kits and lent us toys to keep the momentum of learning going in between sessions. The boys love Sumera entirely and still look forward to sessions with her. I’m blown away by the results she gets and the passion and energy she puts into my children. Thank you for all you’ve done.

F, mum of J & F, Beckenham

We are parents of a 4 years old boy with Autism. We have been having speech therapy with Sumera for a year and half (still having sessions). We remember meeting her for the first time; she was the nicest person with full of hope for us. Our boy was very meeting her every time happy and he enjoys every session with her. She is an amazing person first and a very professional speech therapist.

Our son has made huge progress from being nonverbal to now being fully verbal. Her advice has help us a lot, including helping find the best school for our boy. We feel lucky and are very pleased with her service. Without her, we don’t think our boy would have made this huge progress.
We are so thankful to her. Sumera is always going to be a most special person for our family.

From R’s parents M and F, Nunhead

When Sumera first met our little boy, he was 3 years old. He could say ‘ma’ and ‘da’, and that was it! All other ’speech’ he produced were vowels, and disordered at that. He spoke whole sentences as ee ee ah ah. Where an oo sound was needed, he produced an ee. ‘Moon’, for instance, was quite literally ‘ee’. While we could understand maybe about 50-70% of what he was trying to say, he was completely incomprehensible to everyone else. Our son was completely enamoured with Sumera from the get go - she brought a bag of exciting games and a sparkling personality to match. With the support of Sumera’s insight and expertise, he was producing a range of speech sounds within weeks. By six months, he was chatting away and, for the first time, he was understood by his peers and people outside of his family. While his speech still needs significant improvement, his confidence has soared: he previously avoided social interactions with other children, now he has a little circle of friends at nursery that he tells us about. It has been an incredible journey and, had it not been for Sumera’s energy, experience and judiciousness, this would all still be unimaginable for us.

Parents of K, Lewisham

Our three and a half year old daughter has a diagnosis of ASD and Sumera did the S&L therapy assessment for us, to contribute towards the Local Authority’s EHCP assessment. I highly recommend Sumera. Sumera was great with our daughter, she developed great rapport with us all, she was really thorough undertaking a home and nursery assessment - even during these difficult Covid times. Sumera was supportive of our diversity, we are a multi racial, same sex household. Her assessment report was in depth and knowledgable - the LA could not ignore her recommendations and we are very grateful to Sumera for helping us get the correct level of support for our daughter. We are happy to be approached to provide more in depth feedback on our experience with Sumera.

Parents of L, East Dulwich

A few months ago we were afraid that our 2.5 year old son may stay non-verbal for the rest of his life. But after working with Sumera directly, as well as integrating her advice into our daily lives he has finally started to use words to communicate, and is learning at a fabulous pace!

Sumera has such a lively animated personality that she has managed to instantly engage and keep him interested throughout the sessions - something previous teachers have failed at. She has also been warm and supportive to us as parents and gave lot of invaluable advice around our son’s future and education, as well as helping out with written statements and reports. I am very thankful to have found such a dedicated, conscientious therapist that was also a good match to our son.

S & I, parents of O, Sydenham

We reached out to Sumera because we needed help to unpick challenging behaviours our four year old daughter was exhibiting after starting school. Sumera was thorough, thoughtful, skilled and empathetic in her all communications with us, during her assessment of our daughter (who enjoyed completing activities and playing with Sumera) and provided a professional report with insightful and knowledgeable content. We have felt a weight lifted since her visit and would absolutely recommend her to other families.

R, mother of N, Beckenham

Sumera started working with our son just before he turned 3 following our concerns over his language and social development. Over a year later, his development under Sumera’s care has been fantastic. Sumera seems to have endless patience. Through her dedication and persistence, she gets the best results out of him. She visited his Kindergarten and the guidance she gave staff has aided his development and given us greater comfort. As parents, it has been an emotionally testing time, we can’t thank Sumera enough for the support and hope she has given us.

A & M, parents of L, Beckenham

Sumera has been a huge source of help and support since we started sessions with our 20-month-old son who had a history of glue ear. She offered a range of simple, practical tips for us to use at home and was always on hand to offer advice and reassurance. Our little boy has made huge strides over the last year and that is in no small part down to the care, attention and enthusiasm Sumera has shown. Thank you Sumera - we can’t recommend you highly enough.

R and J, parents of F, Bromley

Our daughter has made significant progress with Sumera and can now speak in short sentences within a year having not been able to use any single words at the age of 2 & a half. She can now also be understood by not only us as parents but also socially. Without Sumera’s support and sessions, I am certain this progress would not have been made.

K & J, M’s parents, Bexley

Speech therapy with Sumera was one of the best decisions we ever made. Our little boy has gone from speaking in single noun words and two word phrases to increasingly using full sentences and verbs with confidence. Sumera was able to develop the good things we were already doing while adding new helpful techniques and approaches. Thanks Sumera! You are highly recommended by this family.

R & D, Parents of D, Forest Hill

Sumera has worked with our 3 year old, non-verbal autistic son for over a year. She worked really hard every session despite our son’s extremely challenging behaviour. She was persistent and tireless and she had an amazing collection of toys (and two beautiful cats) that our son loved.... The strategies and tips she gave us after each lesson were invaluable. It’s been a long and bumpy ride for our son but he did start to talk just before he turned 4. He is now trying to put short sentences together, which is amazing as we had our doubts he would ever get to this stage. Thank you so much for everything Sumera, we wouldn’t get here without you!

J & D, parents of the very unique & special E, Upper Norwood

We initially saw Sumera after our daughter’s first birthday - when she was 15 months old and, at the time, was saying just a single word. We had no idea what the cause of her delayed speech was and were very anxious about her future. Sumera was extremely thorough and supportive from the first session. She taught us how to encourage our daughter’s language development day-to-day and gave us the confidence to persevere when we were seeing little progress. Our daughter has just turned 3 and is joyful to interact with, she speaks in 5 word sentences and picks up new words everyday. We are certain this would not have been achieved in this timeframe without Sumera’s ongoing guidance and support. She would even take the time to text us to see how things were developing and we felt constantly at ease knowing we were able to consult with Sumera outside of our allotted appointments.

Z & D, F’s parents, Selhurst

We are amazingly happy with the work Sumera has done with our 3-year-old son. His language was most significantly delayed and after being signed off from the NHS without seeing any significant improvements, within 6 months Sumera has helped him dramatically. Not only has his language developed to a level where he can express himslef using spoken language, he can also be understood by most, but his confidence and sociability have had a major boost too. We couldn’t be more pleased! The sessions were fun, relevant and flexible in relation to our son’s needs & Sumera was great at involving our extended family too. We all think she is fantastic. Highly recommended.

M & M, parents of O, Grove Park

What can I say, Sumera was an absolute life saver for our family. Not only is she an amazing speech therapist but she was also a fantastic emotional support for me as a parent. Our son went from a total of 8 words to 8 word long sentences in a year! Sumera worked with several members of our family, grandparents etc, to help us all learn the skills needed to help support our son. Every session was different and fun, informal but extremely effective. She is able to adapt the sessions depending on the mood of the child. Sumera also provided support to our sons preschool, working with them to provide extra learning opportunities. Working with Sumera was a fantastic experience and we would highly recommend her.

C & A , parents of A, Sydenham

After trying many speech therapists and our daughter A not improving, we found Sumera and we are overwhelmed with how much A has improved. Sumera is amazing; she’s animated, passionate and A loves her sessions with Sumera. In the short time we’ve been seeing Sumera, A’s improvemnet has been phenomenal as she started therapy with 12 highly unintelligible words and some makaton signs and now we can not get a word in when she is around although she is still quite active which we are working on as well as clarity of speech for residual unclear sounds.

V D, mum to A who was experiencing difficulties associated with extreme prematurity, Kingston

Sumera was a terrific speech and language therapist for our three year old son - his range of words and his confidence in speaking absolutely bloomed thanks to Sumera’s work with him. From giving us clear and practical tips and work to do at home to tailoring the sessions to suit our son’s interests - we are really appreciative of the care and attention Sumera gave to our family during our time with her and we can’t recommend her enough.

3 year old W’s parents, Honor Oak Park (started a block of therapy for 6 months at 2 & a half years old
W presented with a total of 8 words initially and progressed to phrase level spontaneous spoken language)

Sumera was very professional and provided us with really helpful techniques to help with my son’s delayed language. Since then, he has started to talk much more. I am so thankful for her help. I would highly recommend her to anyone.

R, mum to A who presented with an expressive language delay at the age of 2 & a half

Sumera was instrumental in Creating an adaptive and inclusive preschool environment for our son. By introducing visuals, and training the key staff members, he was able to integrate into a mainstream pre
school without feeling isolated or anxious. Thank you for everything.

X, mum to F, a 4 year old boy with ASD, Beckenham

Sumera is deeply knowledgable and passionate about therapy. She completely engaged our ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) twins and through caring and patient hard work, has really improved their communication and taught us the skills to help them keep progressing. Thanks to Sumera’s clear teaching and motivatinal words when we were low occasionally, we are now positive about the future and confident we are supporting our twins ourselves on a daily basis to achieve their full potential. We cannot recommend Sumera enough.

D, dad of twins with significant social communication difficulties, Eltham

I tried a couple of SLTs before meeting Sumera and I did not feel they connected with or understood my son’s strenghts and needs. Sumera really got to know my son and got him straight away. She got the most out of him each session we had. Sumera is professional and very experienced. I would highly recommend her as she is good at what she does.

B, mum to 4 year old D with signifcant attention, language and social difficulties, Eltham

Sumera gave invaluable insight and support into new ways of incorporating therapy into everyday play. She was extremely flexible and showed willingness to help overcome all challenges faced during therapy. She provided resources to work with at home and liaised with school to make sure all interventions were coordinated. I could not have had a better experience.

S, O’s mum, Bromley

My son warmed to Sumera straight away. He really enjoyed coming to her sessions because she makes them so varied and interesting. He raved about her selection of toys! During his time working with Sumera he came on leaps and bounds.

E, S’s mum, Dulwich

My 2 year old son hit it off almost instantly with Sumera, with her friendliness, warmth and work through play techniques she won him over! As a single parent raising a child with developmental delay, the strong support and advice Sumera has provided has helped me greatly to navigate the minefield of caring for a child with special needs. Sumera has armed me with the tools and techniques vital to help my son advance his speech and language development. She has also helped me to better understand communication difficulties and taught me strategies to develop my son’s non-verbal and verbal communication skills. Sumera’s dedication and professionalism in linking in with the other specialists dealing with my son’s care has been invaluable. Sharing her strategies and ideas with them, Sumera ensured that there was a holistic approach tailored towards meeting my son’s needs. I cannot thank Sumera enough for the amount of creativity and thought she puts into each session with my son to make it "fun" and keep him engaged, getting the most out of him without him realising! Most importantly my son has made significant progress under Sumera’s care. I would not hesitate to recommend Sumera to any parent with a child with social and communication issues.

P, mother of a 2 year old boy with significant social communication difficulties, Merton

We have received speech therapy from Sumera for our daughter, who has expressive language delay.
We were not only impressed with Sumera’s ability to interact with our daughter but also her ability to identify the areas of development and to give us clear guidance and practical instructions of how to support our daughter in the future. Sumera is very flexible and takes a very holistic approach, even involving our daughter’s nursery, and visited the setting, which was great.
We have been very impressed with Sumera and can see already the benefits of Sumera’s involvement.
Thank you so much.

I and J parents of 3 year old M, Forest Hill

I contacted Sumera after being concerned that my son’s speech at 20 months was falling way behind his peers. Sumera was great at exploring the possible causes for this and offering reassurance where appropriate. We engaged in regular speech therapy and began to see almost immediate results. We learned so much about the way we were interacting with our son and how we could improve this to aid his development. Six months later, he has made enormous progress and caught up with his peers. We couldn’t be more grateful to Sumera who we feel changed our approach to interaction entirely, and brought huge progress for our son.

J, S’s mum, East Dulwich

Feeling disillusioned with the NHS speech and language therapy intervention, I began to look for alternative solutions. My son has been seeing Sumera for 15 months and he has come on leaps and bounds. He does not stop talking - which as parent of a child with a speech delay, you wonder if it will ever happen. Now he can tell me about his day at pre-school, what he wants to eat for dinner and I can have a full conversation with him. We still have some work to, but with the sessions he has with Sumera plus the home work she sets of us, I am no longer worried about how he will perform when he goes to school next year.
I am so glad I came across Sumera, I have recommended her to my sister and another friend and will continue to work with her for as long as needed!

R, mum to the adorable chatterbox J! Beckenham

Sumera worked with our three-year-old daughter to help her overcome problems she had communicating with her peers. We noticed an improvement in her communication skills from the start and we weren’t alone. The staff at the nursery - whom Sumera trained - were very impressed with how much better she began to interact with her peers too. All in all the sessions our daughter had with Sumera made a huge difference.

I and P, parents of M, Honor Oak Park

Sumera was our first speech therapist, when we noticed our son’s communication was not progressing at 2 years of age. A year later, he was diagnosed with ASD (Autism). We worked with Sumera for over a year and from the start, Sumera was an angel! Over the past couple of years, I have worked with a number of therapists but Sumera really stands out; she pushed my son to get the best out of him, she was firm and caring, and is super knowledgeable. It was clear that I could work well with her from the get go and I knew she would help my child to continuously progress. She helped me understand how capable my son is if I am patient. She gave me and him many new tools and taught me to allow time for him to develop his own responsiveness and communication. Only one year has passed since we moved from the UK to New York and I can wholeheartedly say I have many fond memories of all what I learned from Sumera as a teacher and as a person. My child has progressed so much; he is very responsive, loving, understands almost everything and his vocabulary is growing every day. Sumera, thank you for your presence in our life!

Y, mother of a 2 year old boy with autism spectrum disorder (presented as non-verbal, in his own words and now holding conversations with us!), Balham

As well as being highly experienced, Sumera is warm and friendly and made us feel very welcome. My son was excited by the extensive toy collection and I think he thought he was on a playdate! The fact he felt so relaxed in the setting meant Sumera got the best from him during the assessment. I was very satisfied with both the practical tips and advice Sumera gave in the session and the thorough report she provided afterwards detailing the level he is at in each area. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Sumera if you have any concerns about your child’s speech and language development.

C E, Sydenham

My son was close to his third birthday when I contacted Sumera. Our initial conversation was very thorough and she explained how she works before we committed. My son warmed to Sumera when we first met, which made the initial assessment easier as she established a rapport with him instantly. Sumera gave me hope and eased my worries. She also reassured me that my concerns were listened to. It takes a very special, kind of a person to work with such young children. Sumera did a school observation, and the staff found her recommendations useful and effective. 8 months on and my son is speaking, although unclear, he has made great progress. Sumera has always had time for us. Her advice and recommendations are realistic, honest, and priceless. I have complete faith in Sumera.

W, Mum of 3 year old M, West Dulwich

Our son began speech therapy with Sumera aged 2.5 saying very few words. A year later, he is singing nursery rhymes, stringing sentences together and is becoming more clear in his speech each day. Sumera has such a warm and energetic personality, she will gradually get words out of even the most shy child. Her help doesn’t start and end with the child, she has equipped us with so much knowledge and tips to further help him at home. We would wholeheartedly recommend her.

N, mum of J, Upper Norwood

My husband and I met Sumera for the purposes of assessing our five-year old son, who was having difficulty with his speech and language and which was also making learning at school difficult. Sumera was responsive and informative over email and made the first meeting very easy, explaining time frames and costs clearly. When she came to meet our son, he immediately connected with her, was warm, engaging, perceptive, kind and thoughtful. All of our interactions with Sumera were informative and she immediately made helpful suggestions and gave useful insights into his development and the strategies we were using. Sumera also saw our son in his school environment and provided a report for us about the assessment (which we could share with the school) within the following two days. She made a big impact on our home environment and has helped us implement processes, activities and routines with our son to improve his speech, his behaviour and our family environment. She has also made a very positive impact on his time at school, making suggestions for better socialisation, identifying particular issues and making it easy for us to talk to the school in an informed and proactive way. I can’t recommend her highly enough. She is intelligent, capable, experienced and most importantly knows how to connect with children who are on a different spectrum to others and who are trying to find their feet in the world.

G F, mother of a 5 year old boy with language ad social communication difficulties, Gipsy Hill

Sumera is an extremely knowledgeable and experienced speech therapist. My almost 4 year old’s eye contact and language has improved tremendously since we started speech therapy sessions with Sumera. Sumera instantly connected with my son and engaged with him and understood his area of difficulty. Where my son was only speaking in single words, now he has started speaking in 2-3 word sentences over a very short period of time. Sumera’s sessions are focussed on teaching speech and language strategies to parents who can actually continue therapy strategies throughout the day and week so the improvements are very quick to realise.

J, mum to N, Greenwich

My shy 3 year old was made to feel at ease by Sumera from the moment she arrived. Sumera was kind, engaging and patient and a pleasure to work with. I would certainly recommend her.

J, mum to L who had speech sound issues, Beckenham

Sumera and our son clicked straight away and from day one, he has loved seeing her. We have found Sumera extremely easy to work with and she has helped us as a family so much over the last 9 months.
Thank you Sumera.

Parents of a 3 year old with social communication difficulties

Sumera is warm, supportive and professional. From the point of our first meeting, she established a rapport with our son. Her approach to dealing with our son has been very positive and inspires confidence. She assured us that we would make huge gains which we truly have. Also she has made us, the parents and the nursery work together with her as a team to achieve these results.

V, mother of a 3 year old boy with a significant language delay and possible social communication difficulties

Our son has been working with Sumera for 6 months now and his speech has seen some major improvements. He has gone from less than 5 words at age 3 to more than 45 words within the last 6 months. We are very grateful for the way Sumera structures and teaches our family to communicate better with our son and our son to communicate in different ways with us. We would recommend Sumera to anyone who is looking to improve their child’s communication skills and understanding of spoken language.

K and J, parents of a 3.6 year old boy with a most significant receptive and expressive language delay and impaired attention skills associated with a global developmental delay

We are very pleased with the progress our daughter has made through speech and language therapy with Sumera. We love the engaging approach Sumera uses in therapy. We really appreciate all the strategies taught by Sumera which have helped us as parents to help our daughter overcome her difficulties. Sumera has provided us with life changing support, care and treatment. Our daughter is showing positive results and getting confident every day for which we are very thankful to Sumera.

F, mother of a 3 year old girl with most significant social communication and language difficulties

Sumera has been with us from the beginning of our journey. She taught us very important strategies which helped develop our bright little son’s communication skills further. If you listen to and do what Sumera is saying, you will make lots of progress! What I like in her is that she is truly able in her profession. I would highly recommend Sumera, she is amazing!

A, mother of a 2 year old boy with suspected autism spectrum disorder:

We can not thank you enough for all of your help with our little girl. You worked with such enthusiasm and supported us through your part of our continued journey. Even though we are still working hard to get our daughter to speak, your work with her was invaluable. I would highly recommend you to others and thank you again for your effort and continued support.

G, mother of a 2 year old girl experiencing most significant social interaction and communication impairments

What professionals said:

When I was asked to write a ‘little something’ for Sumera’s website I wondered how I could express my thoughts without going over the top……on further reflection I decided to write it how it is. Sumera is a most fabulous Speech Therapist, she is honest, dedicated, enthusiastic, experienced and most of all she really cares about the families she works with. I have worked with Sumera for many years and have seen her transform the thoughts of parents from a ‘can’t do’ to a ‘can do’ state of mind, passing on to them her extensive knowledge and understanding of the development of communication and language as well as giving them the encouragement to move forward with confidence with their children. She manages to get the best out of the families and children by giving them the best, being fair, consistent, flexible and unfazed by ’spirited’ children. Her sessions are fun, positive and totally engaging. Because we often work with the same families I constantly hear her praises being sung, and comments about her strategies being realistic and workable, no waffle, just clear, proven targets. Sumera is a fabulous Speech Therapist. I totally recommend her to anyone, and am happy to be contacted if more information is needed.

Susan Price, Parent Counsellor [susaneprice@msn.com]

Whilst working with Sumera, I have always been impressed by her professionalism and the strong relationships she builds with parents and children. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience particularly around children with social communication difficulties. Sumera has a lovely calm but animated way of working that children respond positively to and she is very well thought of by colleagues.

Laurain, Senior Assessment Advisor – Multidisciplinary autism spectrum disorders team

Sumera’s work made a great difference. She inspires and teaches professionals to improve their skills.
She improves and strengthens the children’s speech and language ability. Impressive range of material that she uses on point for the individual child.
I highly recommend her.

Damaris Schroth, Nursery Practitioner

I love working with Sumera as she makes excellent relationships with the children and families in her care and I am always thrilled to see how those children flourish. She is a highly valued and respected member of our multi-disciplinary team.

Catherine, Specialist Tacher and Early Years Advisor:

Sumera is a great Speech and Language Therapist. She is friendly and builds up quick rapport with the children. She can identify strengths and needs quickly and provides lots of ideas and activities to help the children achieve their targets. I have worked with Sumera in her role as a Speech and Language Therapist during this academic year. I find her professional and approachable. She is very clear with her instructions on the best way to help our learners and her target setting is concise and helpful. She quickly grasps the child’s abilities and assesses them well. Sumera is always friendly and it is a pleasure to work alongside her.

Isabel, Nursery teacher of a 3 year old boy with most significant communication, social and attention impiarments

Sumera is a fantastic highly specialist Speech and Language Therapist. She is extremely professional when working with both the school and the parents and always ensures the best outcome is met for the child. Sumera provides families with realistic targets and expectations to ensure communication between all parties occurs efficiently and seamlessly.

Natalie, nursery teacher for two 3 year old children, one experiencing social skills difficulties and the other with most significant social, language and behavioural difficulties

Sumera has recently helped the school liaise with a family who have had some difficult news to accept and she gradually brought the parents round to appreciate the help the school were willing to offer. We cannot thank her enough. All parties were very grateful for her service and the child is now having the best possible care with all involved working as a team.

Lucy, Special Educational Needs Coordinator for a 3 year old boy with most significant attention, communication and social skills difficulties