REFERENCES

Kateřina Kubálková

Alena has worked with Simon since he was 4 years old. I appreciate her creative and empathetic approach to Simon and to us, his parents. The lessons were playful and Simon really enjoyed them. Thanks to Alena, Simon was ready before he started first grade.

Markéta Allnutt

The speech therapist is excellent and I definitely recommend her. We see Ms. Alena with our two sons. We are a bilingual family and our sons had problems with r, ř, omitting sounds (older son had difficulties with sentence construction in Czech language, etc.). Mrs. Netolická works with them patiently. The boys enjoy working with her. We work in person and on-line. I highly recommend her services and thank Ms. Alena for her work.

JUDr. Štěpánka Miková

We have been working with Alena since my older son was five years old, and now my younger son has started going to her as well. We as parents are very satisfied with our cooperation with Mrs. Alena. Ms. Alena's lessons are completely different from what we have experienced (once and never again) in a semi-state speech therapy clinic. Ms. Alena's teaching is modern and based on current literature. We appreciate the fact that Ms. Alena works with the children on a regular basis, very carefully and in a fun and pleasant way. She always has fun tools and toys ready and during the lesson she alternates with the children different speech therapy activities appropriate to their age. The children adore Alena and always look forward to speech therapy. Our older son has learned the consonant L and sibilant sounds with her help and is now practicing R.

Mrs. Alena also gives us tasks and suggestions for speech therapy work at home, which is beneficial and important. As a trained psychologist, she has also helped and advised us on our son's problems with concentration disorder and associated difficulties at school. In my opinion, we could not have chosen better and we are very grateful to Ms. Alena for her unflagging energy, drive in her lessons with the children and her above-standard professionalism.

Annika Cerna

I would like to give a big shout-out of thanks to Alena! My son started to see Alena because his speech was essential unrecognizable to anybody else than his immediate family. With Alena’s help, patience, and play based approach, he worked out one letter by the other beautifully and is talking clear as day nowadays.

We’ve been seeing a traditional Czech speech therapist for a few appointments before switching to Alena and the difference and impact of Alena’s approach could be seen immediately. The other speech therapist was not even trying to engage my son in any way but only talking to me as the accompanying parent. Even during the assessment she relied completely on what I (as untrained person) reported. He hated going there. On the other hand, he loved his appointments with Alena and I received comprehensive feedback after every session about the things being trained, what should be followed up on at home, and how the letter/sound should be formed correctly.

It's thanks to Alena that my son overcame physical issues (movement of the mouth and lips, placement of tongue), got rid of a lisp and became so much better in socializing as he could finally make himself understood. She also provided some instruction for the few different sounds in his second language that Czech would not cover. I would like to positively acknowledge here as well, that there was no mention of dropping the second language or similar. Rather there was encouragement.

Thank you so much Alena from me and Jakub! You made a big difference in his life!

Marko Velikonja

Not long after we arrived in Prague for a three-year assignment, our then-four-year-old son, who had exhibited delays in his language development, was diagnosed with a pragmatic communications disorder. We really didn't know what kind of help we could get for him in Prague, but were referred to Alena. Trained in Canada and fluent in English, she knew both how to work with our son and with his anxious ex-pat parents. She employed a seemingly endless range of techniques to draw him out and teach him various life skills, and he made steady progress the entire time she worked with him. They developed a very close bond and it was very difficult when we left and her work with him came to an end. Even though we left Prague nearly six years ago, we remain in touch and she continues to show interest in his development. The milestones he has achieved in school and in other activities have their roots in her guidance and help. We are very grateful we found Alena when we did.

MJ, mother of 6-year old boy

In addition to being an excellent speech therapist - and a very nice person - Alena has given us important guidance and suggestions for contemporary literature and innovative therapy approaches that have made a huge difference for our son.