L
ucia Smith has been a speech pathologist for over twenty-five years. She is the creator of Pelican Talk Speech Therapy Resources and has also managed Love and Reilly Speech and Language Products and training since 2012.
In 2013, Lucia collaborated with Multimedia Speech Pathology to create the popular Speech Sounds for Kids app.
Lucia is passionate about advocating for children with speech, language and/or literacy difficulties. She works mainly in schools in the East Gippsland region of Victoria and is committed to making her sessions with children fun but also meaningful. She usually has a puppet or a magic trick hanging out of her satchel.
Lucia loves to write, illustrate and do things in the water like throw sticks for her dog and stand-up paddle. She likes to travel - preferably to places that have spicy food and exotic names - but is more than happy to visit places around Australia where she is frequently invited to present training for parents, education staff and speech pathologists.
You can view some of Lucia's illustrations here.
Why the Pelican Talk name? Well, after living and working in Melbourne and then Darwin, Lucia settled in a teeny seaside town in Far East Gippsland. There are lots of pelicans there (although they don't talk...).
Love and Reilly
Love and Reilly was established originally in 1994 by Elizabeth Love and Sue Reilly, Australian Speech and Language Pathologists who also have additional qualifications in education. From their knowledge and expertise working in clinical and educational settings, they began to produce resources and programs for language and literacy development, with a focus on oral language and phonological awareness. In time, Elizabeth and Sue began offering much-needed professional development sessions.
Retiring in 2012, the reins of Love and Reilly were handed over to Lucia who continues to offer these wonderful products and training sessions, some of which have been updated and revised.
Love and Reilly's resource A SOUND WAY is a wonderful phonological awareness program that is only available through Pearson Publishing.