Dr. Blanca Schäfer

When my son was two years old, I realised that he wasn’t developing like his older brother. I asked Blanca to take a look at him. She was the first to point out to us that he had not reached important milestones in his development and that there were signs of neurodiversity. She recommended that we have a comprehensive diagnosis carried out at the social paediatric centre. At the same time, she gave us tips on how we could work with him on our communication. I found the advice on how important it is to make eye contact particularly helpful. The suspicion of autism was confirmed and we are grateful that we were able to establish speech therapy and other support options for our son at an early stage.

My son had a cleft palate from birth and I realised that his speech was not developing as quickly as his twin sister’s. At 18 months, I started to worry and contacted Blanca. We made an appointment and she took a lot of time to watch him play and interact with him. My son took an instant liking to her and shared his Duplo with her. It was immediately obvious that she has a lot of experience in dealing with children and there was a harmonious interaction between Blanca and my son. She then shared her observations with me and explained to me very clearly what problems he had. Her expert assessment and detailed diagnostic report helped us to decide that our son needed therapy and in what form. She gave us lots of practical tips on what speech therapy exercises we could do at home in a playful way to support him. Blowing through a straw is a firm favourite with Dad and son. Thank you, Blanca – without your help J* would have lost a lot of time in his speech development!

My son had problems pronouncing the ‘k’; for example, he said Teller (plate) instead of Keller (cellar). We noticed this during the pandemic. We had also just had a new addition to the family. That’s why I was glad that it was possible to work with Blanca online. My husband was also there, so he could see better what exercises were being done and we could discuss directly what we could practise with him between sessions. I didn’t think it would work so well – my son thought it was funny and enjoyed participating. He didn’t want to do any homework, but he practised a lot with his dinosaur figures, so the ‘k’ came quickly.