Testimonials

From an early age, it was clear that our daughter needed some additional assistance to navigate certain situations. She struggled with social interactions and found it challenging to adapt to new environments. We started her with various early interventions since 2.5 years old but her progress was slow.

Fortunately, we were referred to Lela and got a slot for an initial consultation with her. Very soon, we started the language therapy sessions.

Three months since the first session with Lela, we could see a significant improvement in our daughter in terms of socializing and adaptability. She can interact with family and friends with eye contact and no longer has meltdowns as much as before. We were so thankful that we have finally found the right one! 😉 With the sharing from Lela on what we could practice at home, we found it very useful.

With her improvements during the therapy sessions, Lela further suggested for shadow support in school as the next step in her development to prepare her for primary school. We agreed to it and it has been one of the best decisions we have ever made.

With the shadow support provided by Lela, it has helped our daughter feel more comfortable in social settings, allowing her to engage with her peers and build meaningful relationships. She truly understands our daughter's unique needs and tailors her approach accordingly.

The shadow support has also been instrumental in helping our daughter navigate the academic realm. This is through working closely with her teachers in school, ensuring that her learning experience is optimized to meet her individual needs. With the collaborative approach and Lela’s close supervision in the shadow support, it has resulted in improved academic performance and a newfound love for learning in our daughter.

Furthermore, we have noticed a significant boost in our daughter's self-esteem and independence since she started receiving shadow support. With the guidance, she has become more self-reliant, taking on challenges that she once found overwhelming.

We are grateful for the support and guidance that Lela has provided and we would highly recommend shadow support to any parent seeking to empower their child with additional assistance.

Ms Lela’s Language Loft gave us hope to try for a second child.

When Leo was 1.5 years old, he didn’t respond to his name and didn’t know who mummy or papa was. This was after we tried very hard to convey the meaning or get him to respond to his name.

We got worried and sent him to KK Hospital. His appointment was scheduled 6 months later when he was 2 years old. The nurse told us that if he started talking, we could cancel the appointment.

He didn’t. He bombed the tests the paediatrician set for his screening and still did not answer to his name.

They enrolled him into the EIPIC Programme (Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children) with a 1.5-year waitlist and told us to get private therapy and ABA intervention (Applied Behavioural Analysis) for him.

We were told that they suspected he has autism.

We could not wait for an appointment with EIPIC and reached out desperately to our personal contacts and was referred to Ms Lela.

The improvement in the first one month was phenomenal. Leo was able to have longer attention span.

Lela sent us videos and advice on how to better help him at home.

Leo was then able to identify us as "mummy" and "papa". He started calling his grandmother "nainai" without any prompting. It seems like, through Ms Lela, Leo has found the secret to language.

He learned how to point and state the items and their colours such as “red car”, “lorry” and “light” with much gusto and confidence! From the second month onwards he started learning functional words such as “milk”, “eat”, “open”.

On the 6th month with Ms Lela he picked up “Don’t want”! This made communication a lot easier! Yesterday night we had a pleasant surprise. He softly muttered, “I want a cookie!” It was his first ever sentence and we were so happy! There was no way we misheard it.

Leo has improved under Ms Lela’s tutelage and I believe he will continue to improve.

We are so glad with his improvements. We are now trying for a second kid when initially we were fearful of the challenges that lay ahead of Leo.

We hope other parents see this and also consider Ms Lela’s Language Loft at the earliest opportunity.

This is especially when you feel like you are left hanging with no idea which early intervention programme to turn to.

We were helplessly waiting and worried that it might have been too late for Leo had we waited any longer.

Keep up the good work Ms Lela! You changed everything for Leo’s future!

Further to our earlier testimonial, James is 18 now and just finished school this year.

He passed the International Baccalaureate (IB) and will be going to Leicester University in the UK.

When James was very young, we were living in Vietnam and used to travel to Singapore to attend sessions with Lela.

We left Vietnam in 2017 and James did the last 5 years of study at a school in the UK.

It all goes to show that after a difficult start if you have perseverance and the right help then things can turn out well.

Thanks Lela.

Zi Ming has been with Language Loft for slightly more than 6 years.

From a toddler with limited words and expressions, he has grown into a boy who can now express himself and, at times, very chatty when doing his favourite activities.

We are thankful for his progress and the improvements we have observed from the weekly sessions with Lela.

Lela has a very interactive approach in engaging Zi Ming with activities and instilling concepts and basic understanding in order to get him to perform his tasks.

Lela is firm in her teaching methods but we could see that Zi Ming has enjoyed most of his time and sessions there.

We are grateful for the time and effort put in by Lela and her faith that Zi Ming has the potential to grow.

We would like to express our gratitude to Lela who has been helping Joseph in his language development.

Joseph was diagnosed with autism and he started seeing Lela since he was 23 months old.

Then, he still did not know how to call daddy and mummy. Lela has taught him very well and established the foundation of his language very well.

For instance, Lela showed us practical ways to teach Joseph how to call us daddy and mummy. Within two trials, Joseph picked it up! Joseph knew how to answer "Yes" and No questions in just a few of her sessions.

Joseph has also progressed very well from answering questions using a single word to now being able to form a full sentence answer by himself!

In addition, she has given us practical and precious tips on how to teach Joseph.

I am very thankful that I have made the right choice to bring Joseph to see Lela for his language deficit. Joseph has progressed well.

My husband and I will never forget her love, help and tips for Joseph. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you very much Lela!!

We are writing this note to express how thankful and grateful we are to Lela for helping Adrea overcome her difficulties in learning.

Adrea started off with Lela when she was two years old.

She had difficulty in chewing food and we were amazed with the results in the first 6 months. Adrea could progress to eating all sorts of normal food.

We continued with the therapy with Lela.

Progressively, her speech and language improved significantly.

Adrea is now ready for mainstream primary school.

We were referred to Lela when our son Rayden was about 20 months old by our paediatrician when he noticed he was having some speech developmental delay.

From our own observations, we realised he was not speaking or expressing himself through sounds as much as his peers.

We had our initial consultation with Lela and decided to take that leap of faith which has definitely paid off.

The initial 6 months were not easy, as Rayden cried in almost every lesson but Lela showed patience throughout this period and Rayden still participated in the activities that Lela engaged him despite his cries.

Just as immediately as his crying started, the cries suddenly stopped in one of the lessons and he never looked back.

Lela’s Unique Teaching Style for Rayden :

• Takes time after each lesson to run through with the parents what they did after each lesson, provided constructive feedback and what we could do in our own time to improve his speech development.

• Firm and strict when needed, but also made the lessons enjoyable and fun.

• Doesn’t bore the child with “reading after me” style, but one that mixes hand-on activities and academic content.

• He developed from someone who was quiet initially to a very talkative, inquisitive boy and one who doesn’t shy away from asking questions even in a crowd.

• Changes her teaching style over time as Rayden grew older to prepare him for each stage of his academic development but still focused on his speech ability. He was able to write at a fairly early age, and when Rayden was in Kindergarten, she prepared him for Primary One by incorporating Maths and English comprehension syllabuses – using these as part of developing his speech – in her lessons, and it helped him assimilate into Primary school when he started Primary One this year.

We are very grateful to Lela for her dedication and support over past 6 years in making Rayden the confident and self-assured kid he is today.

Engaging Lela to help Rayden with his speech ability is a decision we never regretted and we are confident other parents share our sentiments too.

Thank you so much Teacher Lela!

I miss Aunty Lela so much. I hope I can reattend her lessons. I hope I can visit her soon,” Lewis wrote on a post-it pad. “Mama, can I buy Aunty Lela a meal?” he asked the next day. As you can see, Lewis absolutely loves Lela.

Lewis was diagnosed with Austistic Spectrum Syndrome (ASD) at the age of 3 and he was having issues with interactions and communications. We were recommended to Lela and started Lewis on therapy sessions with Lela from 7 September 2013.

We were most impressed with Lela’s method of teaching and engaging Lewis. Lewis was responding well to her right from the start and was looking forward to the sessions with her. He would come back and relate to us excitedly what he did at the sessions. Lela would always provide a brief on the objectives of each session and on Lewis’ progress.

Throughout the 8 years that she taught him, we saw how Lewis had grown into a more confident boy. He is now able to communicate better with his teachers and his peers in school and with family members at home. Lela also taught him to build social skills to prevent bullying at school.

We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Lela for nurturing and guiding Lewis all these years. We would highly recommend Lela’s services to family and friends.

Coco was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) when he was just 4 years old.  We were lost and did not know where to go then.  We started to find out more about ASD and searched for answers in the internet.  It was then that we came across the Languange Loft website and saw the testimonials of other parents with kids having ASD.  Then, we took a leap forward and met Lela.  With her vast experience and sincere concern with Coco, we felt at ease as we know Coco, with Lela’s guidance, will improve.

We sought Lela’s help as we saw Coco had poor verbal communication skill but, instead, Coco got more than that!  She was very instrumental in most of Coco’s early development.  Coco became more social, disciplined and confident, just to name a few, with all the different techniques that Lela used in every session.

During each session, we found that aside from the learnings that Coco was getting, we were also learning from Lela.  Her feedback every session guided us also as parents on how to support Coco. So, it was a two-in-one session😊, a session for Coco and a session for us, parents.

We are forever deeply grateful to Lela for everything that she did and most specially for her love to Coco. It is a fruitful journey for Coco and us with the guidance from Lela.

Coco is now in Secondary 1 mainstream secondary school. He saw Lela for more than 8 years.

Hope you have the same blessing that we had, especially Coco.

Our son, Cayden, was born with Atresia (right ear) and Microtia (left ear). He wears a hearing device.

This caused delay in his speech development and learning when compared to children in his age group.

We were recommended to Lela by my sister. Her son (my nephew), Jude, went to therapy sessions with Lela earlier (please see their testimonial below).

After the initial consultation with Lela, we felt comfortable with her.

We saw the strength of Lela's teaching methods at the very first lesson when Cayden was just 3 months old. We could see that she would make a significant impact in his speech.

We had total trust that she would be able to help him build up his development and speech confidence level as he grows during his childhood years.

How time flies. Our son will be 5 years old this coming June! Throughout the last few years, we have seen Cayden picking up his first word followed by improvement of expressing himself. He now speaks in complete sentences. He can converse confidently and easily with us and the family. He can easily express his thoughts and what he wants.

Lela is patient and very experienced in handling the children and situation. This results in very positive outcome.

She often gave advice to us as parents on what to focus on Cayden's development so that we can continue to work with him at home. She also showed us how to enhance his confidence and speech ability.

We are forever grateful to Lela for her focus in guiding Cayden in his learning and speech development that now enable him to converse normally just like any other children.

We highly recommend her to anyone seeking therapy for their children.

My daughter, Clara, has Dyslexia.

When she was 5 years old and in Kindergarten 2, I was at a lost when her teacher flagged her spelling.

She could not spell and had problems with numbers and letters of the alphabet.

Phonics did not work.

We did not know what was the learning issue.

I contacted Lela through a friend's recommendation and got an immediate slot for an initial consultation with her.

Clara started lessons with Teacher Lela very quickly, She advised on the next steps on what I needed to do.

Shortly after this, Clara was diagnosed with Dyslexia.

Clara showed improvement after one to two sessions with Lela and is always looking forward to her lessons.

Under Lela's intervention and coaching, she kickstarted Clara's confidence and joy in learning the way of learning. This helped her in her daily school work.

Clara improved in leaps and bounds. From not writing and not even rote counting numbers properly, she progressed to reading and writing well.

As time was tight for us, Lela advised to defer her for Primary 1 entry. This was also recommended by the psychologist.

Two years on and counting, under Lela's professional care, I am glad to say that Clara is all well-prepared for primary school.

I am also heartened to see that Clara is a happy, confident and fiesty child after Lela's "transformation".

Lela's professionalism and knowledge is highly recommended.

She has the "magic" to make kids better. This is something which I am grateful for.

Thank you Teacher Lela!

We had just returned after 3 years in Hong Kong and needed to find someone to help with Kaleb’s learning disabilities as soon as we could.

He was 5 years old and had difficulties with recognising letters, numbers, speech and proper grammar. On top of that he could not sit still in class.

Lela was recommended by my mum’s neighbour whose son was previously under the care and tutelage of Lela. We were lucky she had a slot, and Kaleb and her got along very well from the start.

Kaleb would look forward to her lessons as she knew how to make learning fun. She was able to help him focus in class, recognise letters and numerals, as well as correct his speech and grammar.

Under her care, Kaleb was able to overcome his deficiencies and was ready for primary school. We are so grateful to Lela for her kind help with Kaleb.

She is highly recommended.

My wife and I would like to compliment Lela for her professional service in teaching our son, Isaac, in terms of his speech delay and language deficiencies and guiding him in precise stages at the shortest time possible.

As a result, we have seen a massive change in Isaac. His confidence has grown and he is interested in learning new words and trying to construct sentences. It is simply wonderful to see his growth.

We, as first time parents, decided to engage Lela in December 2018 because Isaac at aged 2 showed slow progress in interacting with his peers. There were times when he showed his frustration when he could not express his needs.

We are happy to work with Lela. She is friendly and professional. She will communicate with us on Whatapps on how she taught and engaged Isaac’s attention through various methods.

She sees things from our perspective and even offer nuggets of advice along the way to help us on how to teach Isaac during our days off.

Knowing that Isaac’s previous school principal and teacher had difficulties handling Isaac, Lela even went out of her way to write emails to them to assure them that Isaac is not autistic. More importantly, Lela even came down to Isaac’s school as a moderator to advise the teacher on how to handle Isaac’s behaviour.

We cannot thank Lela enough and would not hesitate in recommending Lela to other parents as she is someone whom you can trust!

Looking back, it felt like a miracle when we saw the change in Kyan through the help of Lela.

Kyan was turning 3 that year when we met Lela through a friend. Nothing can describe the journey we went through when we realised Kyan can hardly call "daddy" and "mummy". In fact, he can merely murmur a few words. We were so worried and did not know what to do.

As a mum of 2, I compared the progress of my elder daughter to Kyan and felt devastated. We decided to consult Lela. During our first consultation, I remembered Kyan was so active jumping around and could hardly focus at all. Lela gave us some tips and directions of what to do with Kyan such as reducing the number of daily milk feeds and taking note of his behaviours, among others.

I remember Kyan was struggling to go into his weekly sessions and Lela reassured us that he will be fine. True enough, after a few sessions, Kyan would gladly hold her hands and followed her into the class. Through her persistent efforts and strong guidance, Kyan made leaps and bounds of progress. He was able to sit and focus very well in school and at home. He also began to slowly show interest in talking and interacting with people.

Kyan is now turning 5 and he is a happy, chatty and confident boy. We are glad we went to Lela. Her guidance and patience with Kyan have definitely helped define who he is today. It was never easy with Kyan and we are grateful for her love and concern. Nothing can express our gratitude to Lela and we will definitely recommend her to anyone who  needs help in this area. Kyan misses Lela so much! Here's wishing Lela and her family the very best in life and may she continue to touch the lives of all those in need!

I first contacted Lela through a colleague’s recommendation.

From our first meeting I could tell that she was experienced, knowledgeable and committed to helping us.

She was firm when need be but always made the sessions enjoyable. Ashraf always looked forward to her sessions and progressed well. She gave advice when I needed it and worked with his kindergarten teachers to provide support.

Now, four and a half years down the road, Muhammad Ashraf is a more confident individual. He has improved in his reading ability, handwriting, speech articulation and also behaviour. From a child who hardly spoke much, he is now able to articulate better and speaks up often.

"I feel happy and sad at the same time…. happy that I have improved so much but sad that I won’t get to see Teacher Lela anymore.", Muhammad Ashraf, aged 9.

Thank you so much Teacher Lela. Bless your wonderful heart. May you continue to make a difference in the lives of other families just like you did to ours.

Lee Young was slightly over 4 years old when our pediatrician recommended us to Lela. We started the therapy session with her from Feb 2013 and through a psychologist recommended by Lela, we found out that Lee Young has a learning disorder known as Specific Language Impairment.

As our boy was unable to articulate his needs to us well, he often broke into tantrums. Lela was patient yet strict with him and gradually corrected his behavioural issues. She also worked on his language and writing.

He has grown from "a boy with few words" to a chatty and confident young boy thanks to the guidance from Lela all these years.

We are grateful to her for her dedication and we have grown to be friends and beyond. Lela often jokes that he is like her fourth son.

Thank you Lela!

From,
Kok Kim & Guat Ling
Parents of Lee Young

This testimonial goes to Lela, my son’s saviour whom we are grateful to and fortunate to have been introduced to by my son’s psychologist.

Raeden was first diagnosed with speech delay and global developmental delay when he was three years old.

At that time, he was unable to write, read and talk simple single syllable words.The road was not clear if he could make it to a mainstream primary school. To make it worse, he seemed autistic and had social skills problem.

Raeden was not easy to manage and was behind in his development. However, Lela was able to manage him with her patience, expertise in therapy and vast knowledge.

A lot of work needed to be done on him. She would give us tips and frank opinion. We tried out best and followed her advice. She taught him not just speech and language but also motor skills, social skills, writing, coordination, etc.

Raeden progressed very well under her care and eventually he made it to a mainstream SAP primary school. Not only that, I never needed to worry about his spelling, reading and language understanding since kindergarten. He loves to go to her lessons.

Her love and passion for kids can never be undermined. She will seek constant improvement and learning for the children. This assured us how determined and hardworking she is. I am amazed at how efficient she is and her ability to manage all these.

Raeden’s achievement was a result of her efforts. Today when I tell people that he had speech delay, they couldn’t believe it as he speaks a lot and talks so well.

Many people wonder why he is still seeing a speech therapist when he can speak so well now. Like many parents, we have expectations of Raeden for the good of him. Improvement is lifelong learning. We want to treat it early and not give up until we are very sure he doesn’t need it anymore. My advice to parents is treat it early and never give up!

Best wishes,
Anson & Jolynn
Parents of Raeden

A testimonial for someone who is truly amazing for the society ...

Kaeyan was 3 years old turning 4 when a friend introduced Ms Lela to us.

At that age, he still could hardly put words together which we were very concerned about. Never a time could he accept anyone saying “no” to him.

Ms Lela assessed him, and we can never forget how different he was during the first day of our meet up. Kaeyan was all over us, pressing switches, climbing up and down the sofa, messing the educational materials in the cosy room. She then explained thoroughly our child’s situation and what we could do to handle him best.

During these 4 years, she showed commitment and passion not only towards our child, but she also guided us on how we, as parents, could do to support him. The level of dedication and patience she gave was truly remarkable till today.

We are proud to say that Kaeyan is a happy, confident, and sociable child today! His progress is so noticeable that friends and relatives commented on the improvement in him.

As he confidently begins his Primary 1 journey, we want to thank Ms Lela for guiding him through this development period with encouragement and unconditional love for him and our family. Maybe others might not think that this is a big deal. However, to any parent, I believe the progress of our child means the entire world. As parents, we are truly gratified.

Sincerely,
Francis & Julia, parents of Kaeyan New
16 January 2018

Our son Jude was 2 years 9 months when we started with Lela. After the initial evaluation we knew we felt comfortable to move forward with her. She was very thorough and upon the first meeting we could see that she was going to make a significant impact on his speech.

Our son will be 5 years old next month and he has made great strides in his area of deficiency that even family and friends who had not seen him for a period of time commented on his progress. Nobody would have thought that Jude was once a boy who required an interpreter (us parents) whenever he spoke.

Lela creates a very fun and interactive environment, but is still able to command the room with a no nonsense approach. Her skills allow her to use any mood or behaviour the child is exhibiting for learning and language.

We are so glad that we found Lela and with no reservation, we will highly recommend her to anyone seeking speech therapy for their children.

Koen has speech and language delay. We were recommended to visit Ms Lela who was able to conduct an initial assessment and advised us on the speech sounds Koen needed help on. We have the most positive experiences with Ms Lela and her teaching methods. She is very experienced in handling children and has taught with very positive outcome. Koen has improved in a fairly short period and he loves his weekly appointments. He has become more confident as he is now able to speak in complete sentences. I am forever grateful with the help offered by Ms Lela.

We first visited Ms Lela in July 2014. My son, Dashton, was 2 years and 4 months old at that time and he has not started talking or even babbling then. As you can imagine, my wife and I were rather concerned about his development in this aspect and we wanted to seek help as soon as possible since we read that early intervention will definitely help in improving his speech development.

Initially we visited another speech therapy centre but after a few sessions, we did not feel my son was benefitting from the teacher and so we pulled him out. We were recommended Language Loft by one of my wife’s close friend and we promptly made an appointment to visit Ms Lela.

I must say this was one of the best decisions we made for our dear son so far. Right from the first session, we could see Ms Lela’s dedication to her job, perhaps more appropriately to the kids under her charge. On a professional front, her experience and effective applications were clearly evident as the techniques used by her was useful in enhancing my son’s confidence and speech ability. She was also able to instil discipline and yet still show care and concern for him.

Fast forward to today, my son has no qualms in communicating his ideas and thoughts and is picking up the pace in conversational skills. Much of his progress can be attributed to the efforts of Ms Lela over the past 2 years and more, and for that, we would like to thank her what she has done for our son. Here’s wishing her and her family all the best in the years ahead as she continues to reach out and touch the lives of kids out there. God Bless!

Rachel saw Lela when she was three years old. I wrote a testimonial then (please see below).

This year, aged 12, she achieved an A for her English paper in PSLE. She did well enough to be in the Express stream.

I wish to thank Lela for helping her in her long journey in language development and for introducing her to speech. Without her as Rachel's first teacher she would not have achieved what she has today.

When my youngest daughter was about 4 years old, I noticed that she was stuttering, but it was not too bad. However, it got really obvious when she was 6 years old. Luckily, her paediatrician recommended Lela to us.

We noticed improvement after the first few sessions. Finally, after seeing Lela for a few months, there was almost no stuttering in her speech. Most importantly, she enjoyed every session and was always looking forward to it.

Thank you Lela for your patience and guidance!

In 2013, Darius was diagnosed with speech delay by his Paediatrician, pre-school’s in-house therapist and the Developmental Paediatrician at KKH Child Development Unit. I was advised by the Paediatrician to contact Lela. In my opinion, Lela is simply amazing!

When we first brought Darius to Language Loft, he was 3 years old and could only say the word “Hi” and nothing else. In less than a year, Darius had improved so much that no one would had guessed that he had speech delay.

Darius loved going for his lessons with Lela. She is kind, patient and very dedicated to what she does. From just a simple “Hi” Darius can now say “I love you Mama and Papa”. My heart is filled with so much gratitude for Lela.

Currently, my younger son, Zeyric, who was also diagnosed with speech delay, is also seeing Lela, He is two years old. I am looking forward to hearing Zeyric talk too!

Thank you Lela for your tireless and patient guidance of my two boys!

Four years ago, when we were told that Antonio was suspected to have autism with speech delay, our world collapsed. We were lost and helpless. Luckily, our paediatrician recommended Lela to us. That was when things started to get better. We had directions and we had hope.

In about one year, we saw tremendous improvement in Antonio's speech. He went from non-functional speech, such as single words like colours and numbers, to functional short sentences (for example. I want to eat) and short descriptive phrases (for example, the bear is wearing a hat, the pink cookie with sprinkles). He had short attention span but Lela managed to engage him throughout the one-hour sessions with her interesting methods and toys used. Each session had about 3 to 4 different activities which were just nice for Antonio without losing his interest. Antonio looked forward to his weekly session with Lela. She listened to Antonio and understood him. That is very important for ASD kids in order to break through their world and have meaningful interactions.

Apart from speech, she also helped lengthen his attention span and kept him seated. His nickname was "Mr Ants-in-the-Pants”! He learned independence as she encouraged him to complete tasks by himself. He also acquired fine motor skills, for example, cutting and writing.

Today, Antonio is more expressive and confident, he can express what he wants and doesn't want and what he likes and doesn't like. He asks questions and answers simple questions spontaneously and he has meaningful small talks.

Over the years, she never failed to listen to our concerns and the issues we faced. She has been giving us great support with helpful tips and advice.

In short, she is a godsend!

Lela has helped Aaron work on his language comprehension and sentence structure since he was four and I am glad to say that he has made marked improvement in expressing himself today and is integrating well in primary school.

Lela used many fun and innovative ways for her sessions. I especially enjoyed sitting in some of those sessions and watching her use a wide variety of cute and colourful toys to depict different situations and scenarios. She also gave us tips on how we could teach him at home, so that we could provide him with constant and consistent reinforcements, for example, how a storybook should be "read" so that the gist of the story can be easily digested by a child, how to describe something, etc. I'm thankful to have found Lela. Her therapy sessions have been extremely helpful in improving Aaron's speech and comprehension.

We are thrilled that our 5 year old son, Leo, was privileged enough to spend a few sessions with Lela. She has an incredible, infectious enthusiasm and passion for her work, which was quickly transferred to our extremely shy son. Within a few minutes Lela had our normally, reluctant little 5 year old, giggling, learning and improving his speech. An hour session for Leo seemed like 5 minutes to him and he was constantly asking to return for his next session! It is not only Lela's unique ability to relate to her students, but her unrivalled subject knowledge which was clearly explained and communicated to us as parents which enabled us to support Leo in between sessions. Within a few sessions Leo no longer needed Lela’s services and although we are thrilled with the progress he made in such a short space of time, it was tinged with regret that Leo wouldn’t be spending his weekly sessions with Lela.

In early April 2014, a general practitioner highlighted that Caden might have autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He suggested that we take Caden to KKH, Department of Child Development, for further assessment. Upon learning this, my world collapsed even though the diagnosis had not been confirmed.

Subsequently, our pediatrician felt that Caden could have been misdiagnosed due to his speech delay. He recommended Language Loft for Caden’s language intervention.

Lela is an experienced therapist. From our first consultation on 18 April 2014, she identified several issues that may have contributed to Caden’s speech delay. For example, Caden might have been watching too much television. She also suspected that Caden might have tongue tie. She assured us that he did not appear to have ADHD as he could sit still throughout the one hour session.

We listened to her advice and switched off the television for that weekend. True enough, we could see instant results. In the past, Caden usually did not call “Mummy”. When we went out for dinner on 19 April 2014 without Caden, he actually went around the house searching for me and calling out “Mummy” non-stop till we returned. His act shocked his maternal grandmother and auntie. This further affirmed that Lela’s therapy session was useful.

Since 18 April 2014, we have been diligently going for our weekly therapy sessions and Caden has progressed tremendously under Lela’s guidance. We are delighted to share that Caden has been assessed and certified as a typically developing child by a KKH specialist on 8 July 2014. The specialist also said that he has passed the speech and language milestone for his age group.

Once again, we are deeply grateful to Lela for helping to unleash Caden’s potential. Without her, we would not be able to identify Caden’s tongue tie and brought him to undergo release of tongue tie procedure on 24 June 2014. With his tongue tie issue rectified, we know that Caden would be able to reach his true potential under Lela’s guidance."

Etienne started primary school this year. After 2 and a bit years under Lela’s guidance he has gone from a boy with speech and social impediments to being able to integrate into the local school system, make friends and make himself understood perfectly.

We appreciated the way Lela was able to work with his occupational therapists and kindergarten teachers to adapt Etienne’s therapy sessions to address his specific weaknesses while giving him confidence. She made learning so much fun that he never grumbled about attending sessions.

As concerned parents, just like others, we only wanted the best for Charles and finding the right person to help him in this learning journey is of utmost importance. Lela's sessions are fun and engaging, which simply explains why Charles expresses great interest in her sessions and always looking forward to the next.

We have witnessed significant improvements in our boy's speech. Before we started sessions, we commonly heard Charles slurring single words. Over a relatively short span of 3 months, it's beyond words to describe how joyful my wife and I are, as Charles progressed and started articulating clear and full sentences.

We are confident that Charles is able to achieve the next milestone under Lela's guidance. We deeply appreciate Lela for being so patient and making a positive difference in our boy. And with heartfelt thanks to Lela's quality advice and words of encouragement, that has made the journey so much easier and meaningful for our family.

William has been seeing Lela for about 3 years and it has been wonderful to watch him grow from being barely able to speak and interact with his peers to now starting to read and write and be fully interactive with his classmates at kinder. We are so glad to have found Lela and for her to help William reach his potential. We would recommend her to anyone.

Our little boy, Rui started seeing Lela just before he turned 4 years old. At that time his speech was limited and he was only using single words to communicate. Everyone had trouble understanding him and he was getting frustrated too.

Although his kindergarten did not suggest intervention, we took it upon ourselves to source some professional advice. When we met Lela, we knew immediately that she would be able to help.

Lela has been wonderful with her strategies and Rui wouldn't even realise that he was actually doing work.

He is now talking a lot more and with confidence. We cannot thank Lela enough for her continuous support and love for Rui. We have gained a lot from our experiences with Lela and more importantly a lifetime friend.

We brought Kai to Lela when he was about 3 years old.

Then, we were concerned as he could not pronounce and articulate very basic words. He would have his consonants and vowels all mixed up and there were several hilarious videos of him in which he mis-pronounced certain critical words, much to Lela’s horror!

Lela worked patiently and tirelessly with him and we could see significant improvements after 6-8 sessions. The progress continued dramatically and by the 10th session, Lela declared that he was ready to graduate. We continued a few more sessions, just to be sure, and we finally “graduated’ by the 12th session. Kai is now a very self-assured and chatty boy. Because he is now able to clearly articulate his thoughts and feelings, he now has a greater confidence to speak up in school and when he interacts socially. We are grateful to Lela for her unwavering confidence and patience with Kai. Although, we still keep the funny videos, and show them once in a while to remind us how far he has come.

We would like to thank Lela for her patience and kindness in working with Owen over the past 16 months. Prior to meeting Lela, when Owen was approaching 3 years old, we didn't know whether to be concerned or not at his lack of vocabulary, but at our pediatrician's recommendation we introduced Owen to Lela, who was able to immediately identify some issues and suggest a course of action to address them. Throughout the subsequent period we've seen Owen make steady progress, thanks to Lela's methods and techniques. As well as improvements in his vocabulary and diction, Lela also worked on his attention span, and from originally being reluctant to focus on any activity for more than a short time, Owen now has good focus in most of our activities together. He's also become far more comfortable interacting with his peers and his elders. We always appreciated Lela's detailed synopsis of each session, which enabled us to see the progress Owen was making, and to spend the following week reinforcing what had been achieved. We'll continue to visit Lela periodically to ensure Owen is still progressing appropriately, and would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Lela for putting him on the right track.

Elijah was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2½. Both my husband and I felt helpless at that time as autism was alien to us. We enrolled Elijah at a special school at age 3 for Early Intervention Programme. Although he went for early intervention programme, his speech was very limited, almost non-verbal.

We started to look for a private therapist towards the end of 2010 when he was about 4 years old. We have tried contacting a few intervention centres. However we were disappointed as we felt most of them were very commercialised.

In our moment of desperation, we found Language Loft through God's grace. We did not pin too much hope at that time after our past experiences. God answered our prayer that we felt at peace and hopeful after talking to Lela. It is her sincerity and honesty that drew us to her. She assured us and she believes in every child.

For the past 10 months with Lela, Elijah has shown remarkable improvement. He is not as frustrated as before as he is able to engage us through verbalisations, body gestures, eye contact and facial expressions. Not only is Elijah happier and more playful, he is also more expressive and able to share his feelings with us.

Lela's therapy journey did not just help our son, it also helped us to understand and see our child through his dimension. Our family is grateful and thankful to Lela for all her hard work and passion she has in helping children with special needs. We keep Lela and her family in our prayers, thanking God for such an angel he has given us. A big thank you, Lela.

Before we started seeing Lela, Hector (2years 6 months) had a vocabulary of less than 10 words. Immediately after the first session, his vocabulary expanded by one more word and so we were sold. He started weekly individual therapy in July 2010. Through facilitated play, Lela got Hector to be more interested in human interaction and in picking up the language. She also got Hector more interested in books, which he previously had zero tolerance for. What we have learnt, as parents, was actually how to play with our child to engage him better. Lela has shown that even the simplest of toys, like a kitchen roll, can be the most engaging toy as long as we tailor the activity to suit his cognitive level.

To prepare Hector for pre-school, we started him on weekly group therapy in Sept 2010. The aim was to help him to get use to a group setting, to learn to take turns, to learn how to conduct himself with peers of his age as well as to increase his attention span in order to complete a task. Each session was always so much fun and laughter for the kids and the caregivers. A great variety of activities were carried out; water play, sand play, drawing, painting, handicraft, story-telling. During the activity, there was also a lot of exposure to language. Hector has improved greatly through the sessions, and he is now able to participate fully in all the activities without losing focus. The objectives have been met.

Over the past 6 months since we started seeing Lela, Hector has improved tremendously. He is now able to speak in sentences and communicate with us. He is also very interested in books. He has also shown great improvement in his understanding of what we say to him. In short, he has become smarter. Apart from the language, Hector has improved a lot behaviour-wise, which we attribute to the group therapy he had. He is more attentive and better able to follow instructions and to follow our lead. This has great implications as even outings and travels have been more pleasant. We have also learnt to become better parents, to be more aware of his learning style and his personality and how to engage him to make his learning richer. With greater understanding between parent and child, we are all having more fun together too.

Thank you, Lela.

Lela is such a great therapist. Our sessions are always fun for Rifqi but more importantly, I always learn something during sessions and go home with new ideas and renewed motivation to keep working hard.

What I love most is that Lela truly understands what language (not just speech) really is and knows how a child develops language naturally; what is expected at various developmental stages, what we should be striving for next. Lela reminds and encourages me to push forward and always increase my language goals and expectations of Rifqi, but yet shares my joy in the progresses he makes along the way.

We have been to a few therapists and I must say that Lela not just knows her job very well, with many years of experience dealing with all kinds of issues (autism, Global Developmental Delay, hearing impairment, cerebral palsy, Down's Syndrome etc), she is also very compassionate and understands what we parents are going through.

She is passionate and goes out of her way to think and carry out appropriate activities for my son, Luke. There is no one-size-fit-all formula as every child is wired differently. Lela understands this very well. Lela has many creative formulae. She surprises you with her wide range of toys, games, books and her techniques. She makes it fun and that is important because if it's not, kids cry and then they won't learn much. Oh, and I must say Luke has fallen in love with her soothing singing too! Luke is captured by her love and engaging technique. With the good advice and seeing how Lela does it in our one-to-one sessions, we apply certain techniques on Luke at home and it is working out well, for example, giving instructions, how books should be read, how nursery rhymes and songs should be sung, and how the environment should be.

What I find very effective is the group sessions Lela conducts where Luke gets to see and mimic other children, and interact through turn taking and sharing. Group sessions are excellent to prepare Luke for nursery school as activities extend to phonics, numbers, tracing, writing, matching, pretend play, songs, books, etc. Lela has the full set of Montessori materials. It helps Luke with fine-motor skills such as grasping and pincer grip. Luke goes to a special school and after a one term holiday under the three times a week coaching from Lela, Luke could hold crayons and pencils without fussing. Luke has reached many milestones over the 9 months we have been seeing Lela.

Lela is a mother of 3 young children and that is many professions rolled into one. Plus she is trained in early childhood education as well as Montessori. Combined with her auditory verbal therapy experience, she has all the credentials!

Luke has been seeing Lela on a one to one basis since June 2010 and group therapy sessions since September 2010. We are thankful to our paediatrician for referring Lela to us.

Lela has performed a very important role in the development of our daughter, Ashley. She has guided Ashley on a course focussing on improved articulation and use of expressive language, and does so with boundless enthusiasm and with a wonderful ability to connect with children at their own level. Our lessons are truly fun, which makes learning and development so much easier.

Our daughter, Gracia, was late in speech development. With referral from a paediatrician, we came to Language Loft. We found Lela to be very dedicated and focused on our daughter's development. Gracia enjoys the therapy sessions as she thinks it is just all play. Now, I can see that Gracia, who started with very few words, shy and almost no confidence, becoming more active and confident in speaking. We are happy and have more confidence in her future.

My son, Eigo, lost his hearing from a serious illnes. He underwent cochlear implantation in both ears. Lela's therapy is so fun and the child can follow her session without becoming bored. She is always thinking about what is required and what is best for the child. My son loves her therapy so much. She also gave me some nice advice for home therapy. We are really grateful for her help.

Lela is absolutely fabulous with young children. She connects very well with my 3-year-old twins Rachel and Jonathan. Rachel, who has speech delay, started therapy in June 2007. Rachel looks forward to her Saturday class with Lela as she learns to listen, concentrate and communicate through creative play and reading. She is more willing to converse with family members, school teachers and classmates, albeit in short sentences. Lela was very kind to let Jonathan attend one of Rachel's therapy sessions, and it was amazing how she engaged both my children and developed their verbal and communication skills.

As a therapist, she has a list of language development goals set and discussed for a three month period which will be reevaluated at the end of those three months. Apart from that she also has a weekly set of goals for us to work with. She comes up with fun filled activities to keep my son interested and at the same time learn language. I admire her ambitiousness and optimism while working towards the goals and her patience while waiting to achieve them. The time and thought she puts into planning each session is the reason why Roy looks forward to these weekly visits.

My son, Aaron has a speech delay. He started therapy sessions with Lela Iuorno when he was 2 plus. Her sessions were interactive and interesting as she engaged both Aaron and me in a variety of activities to help him in his language development. Aaron has since increased in his vocabulary repertoire and is able to articulate 2 to 3 combined words. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with her.

My son has been having problems with language development and we came over from our home in Vietnam to Singapore for a diagnosis where we were referred to Lela for language therapy sessions. Lela shows a good understanding of her subject and is able to get inside the kids' minds, and she also educated the parents on how to apply the therapies themselves. We have been visiting Singapore for 3 months now and since we started, my son has made good progress and shown significant improvements.

Lela loves kids and she is an energetic lady. Although we asked her to do Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) for our daugther, she is always thinking about our daughter's intellectual skill improvement and tries to raise her cultural awareness. Based on her long experience as an Auditory Verbal Therapist, she can find even a small improvement in our daughter's hearing ability, and set new targets with logical explanations. She guides us on the right direction with appropriate speed, without giving us too much pressure or stress in our daily therapy activities at home. We are very much satisfied with Lela's AVT, and we enjoy the time we spend with her.