Speech Bubbles the Participants View by Adam Power-Annand

In Feb 2025 at the launch of the Speech, Language and Communication Alliance in the House of Lords one of our participants had this to say…

Illustration by Adam Douglas-Bagley

‘Good afternoon, my name is Daniel, when I was 6 years old I took part in a programme called Speech Bubbles. I was chosen for Speech Bubbles because my confidence needed building and I was shy to speak, especially in front of the class. Now I am in year 5 (10 years old) I am able to speak to many people in class and outside of class. I think I am able to do this because Speech Bubbles really helped me to build my confidence. Which in turn helped me with my learning at school. I am now working above where I am supposed to be and I believe it is because lessons like Speech Bubbles helped me when I was younger. I am now also an excellent storyteller and I am doing really well at my literacy. I think all children should do Speech Bubbles because it helped me be more confident, it helped me to write stories and I also made lots of friends in the group. Thank you for listening and I hope you all have a good afternoon.’

Daniels testimony echoes that of children that were interviewed by Dr Jonathan Barnes, as part of his research paper – ‘Improving children’s social and emotional health by truly listening to their stories’ 2020.

‘…at first I wasn’t really listening, It felt like it was going to take years to get to my turn, but …I realised that everyone was listening to me so that I should listen back to them because they’re giving me their time and attention and I am giving them mine.’

‘I liked the square - no I didn’t actually like it- I loved it, because we could explain our ideas and make up our own stories and express ourselves …’

Illustration by Amelia Bird

Throughout this research children particularly remarked on confidence built through the Speech Bubbles sessions:

[In] SB upgraded myself to be confident in class and out of class. When I am doing a question I [now] can get up in front of the whole class and answer it without thinking ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ – it made me understand and speak out.’