Chris Tames a Dragon!
Linguistics alumnus, Chris Wade has won the support of Theo's 'Small Business Sunday' campaign. He graduated in 2004 and, thanks to a careers talk organised by Francis Katamba from the Linguistics department, went on to study a BSc (Hons) Clinical Language Sciences degree and graduated in 2007.
After working for the NHS Chris set up ‘London Speech Therapy’ to provide independent speech & language therapy to families and schools. In just six years Chris and his team have become one of the United Kingdom's foremost speech & language therapy practices throughout the country and internationally.
Chris said 'recognition for my practice by Theo and his team is fantastic. His support provides a platform for not just my practice but for speech & language therapy in general. Despite raising the profile of the profession, speech & language therapy is not ‘The Kings Speech’. Being a speech & language therapist involves working with a diverse client group including children with autism, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, specific language impairment and adults with dementia, Huntington's disease, laryngeal cancer, throat cancer, right hemisphere brain injury and traumatic brain injury'.
In addition to working with individuals, Chris’ team provide integrated speech and language therapy to main stream schools, special schools and resource bases across London, Essex and South Wales.
In March 2012 Chris also launched the Colourful Semantics iPad app which is based on the extensive work of Alison Bryan. The Colourful Semantics app is one of the most downloaded Speech & Language Therapy apps on iTunes.
Chris is also a Director of The Association of Speech and Language Therapists in Independent Practice (ASLTIP).