​Our story


Who we are and what we do

​Speechie is an independent speech-language therapy service committed to Kiwis living great lives. 

Speechie's mission is to enable affordable, accessible, quality speech-language therapy for anybody who wants it, because we believe that communication currency is the second greatest gift we can give our fellow human beings.  (The original greatest gift being the gift of love.)
Speechie is a social enterprise, which means that we use money as a tool for doing good in the world. ​ The good that Speechie does as a social enterprise is called our 'social impact.'  Our current social impact priority is making sure that efficient, effective, equitable, and early identification, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of children with Communication Disorders is happening in Aotearoa New Zealand. ​


Closing the speech-language therapy gap

Communication Disorders affect 1 in 12 children ages 3 to 17 and are the most common disorders of childhood.  Speech Sound Disorders are the most common Communication Disorder in children ages 3 to 8.  Children with Communication Disorders are at risk of having poorer learning, social, and financial outcomes, and a reduced quality of life.  

​The New Zealand government provides a free public speech-language therapy service for children with communication needs through the Ministry of Education.  But in the public service there are children with Communication Disorders waiting to be identified, waiting for help to begin, waiting for their profile of needs to be accurately established, and waiting for a level of service that matches their needs.  So, in reality, the public service is is overloaded and there is a speech-language therapy gap.

At Speechie, we believe that it is all of our responsibility as Kiwis for the future of our communities to try and close this gap. So, we have launched the SLTproject (charitable trust) as a way to help more children, help them sooner, and help them better, so that children with Communication Disorders can have equity and have successful lives, just like other tamariki. 
Please visit the SLTproject website to join the nationwide impact community working to make this happen or to find out more about the collective effort that is underway.