Kate (2)

Kate Thomson

Speech Pathologist
Email: info@speechease.net.au
Phone: 1300 773 273

Kate Thomson

Kate is a go-getter who established the first SpeechEase clinic in Townsville two days a week while still working full-time in her government job.

She saw a huge need for speech therapy services in Mackay when the NDIS started and began providing services there on the weekends until there was enough demand to open a clinic. Once this happened, Kate couldn’t continue to manage a full caseload and support her team adequately, so she made the difficult decision to be the full-time Director of SpeechEase and leave the one-on-one therapy behind.

Kate now spends her mornings creating, reviewing and updating business procedures, then dedicates a large portion of the day to coaching, supporting and managing her team members, either one-to-one or in groups.

After pondering whether to be vet, a teacher, or a human resources manager, Kate found her way into speech therapy by chatting to a speechie – in this case, her sister’s friend who had come over for dinner. By the end of the meal, Kate knew she’d found her ideal job. She loves talking and wants more people to be able to talk back! And the wide variety of speech therapy clients keeps the work interesting.

Communication helps show who you are. As a speechie, Kate loved helping unlock a clients’ communication abilities using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) so they could show the world who they are and what they know – sometimes surprising their own family members with what they could do.

While she sometimes misses seeing clients, Kate finds great fulfilment in running SpeechEase because she’s able to help many more people. When she worked as a speech therapist, she could only help one client at a time. Now, as director of the practice, Kate’s leadership and expertise equips her team to support many clients in different locations. She hopes to extend her reach even further as she’s aware of many unmet needs throughout Queensland..

Kate’s a bright, fun person with a global outlook and a great love of animals, especially her two Maltese x Shih Tzu puppies, Ollie and Ella. She supports Community Veterinary Clinics for Southern Africa, a charity that desexes and vaccinates dogs to protect the community from rabies and other disease and Operation Cleft, which provides cleft palate surgery and speech therapy to people in Bangladesh.

She admires people who get up each day and push ahead despite challenges. She sees that quality in her team, her partner and her own family as well as in SpeechEase’s clients and their families. It’s one of the reasons she decided that SpeechEase would sponsor the Special Children’s Christmas Party in Townsville and Mackay each year so that the children and family can enjoy a special day made just right for them.

Kate’s a keen traveller, who has so far explored Europe, Japan, Bali and Thailand and plans to go to Africa or Southern America next. One of her goals is to be an international presenter on AAC. Watch this space!

  • Director and Principal Speech Pathologist
  • Bachelor of Speech Pathology at James Cook University
  • Scholarship from SARRAH
  • Committee member for AGOSCI
  • SOS Approach to Feeding
  • Certified to provide the ‘More Than Words’ parent education program
  • Qualified to provide the PROMPT technique
  • Member of Speech Pathology Australia