For Lebanese Families Abroad

Lebanese Arabic Speech Therapy Online for Families in Australia

One-to-one speech and language therapy in Lebanese Arabic, or in English, for Lebanese families in Sydney, Melbourne and across Australia — delivered live from Beirut, in the dialect spoken in your home.

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Australia holds one of the largest and most settled Lebanese communities in the world, concentrated in south-west Sydney and northern Melbourne, and now three and four generations deep. That depth is exactly the issue: the further a family gets from the generation that arrived, the more the Arabic narrows to greetings and food words. Parents who grew up speaking it fluently watch their own children answer in English, and there is very little local provision aimed at that specifically — Arabic-speaking speech pathologists exist in Sydney, but few speak Lebanese Arabic as a first language and fewer still have availability.

How Sessions Work From Abroad

How this fits with NDIS and local speech pathology

Speech pathology in Australia is delivered by Certified Practising Speech Pathologists, and where a child has a diagnosed developmental condition it is often funded through the NDIS or partially through Medicare. Ghinwa is licensed and practising in Lebanon, is not a registered speech pathologist in Australia, and these sessions cannot be claimed against NDIS, Medicare or private cover. If your child has an NDIS plan, use it — that funded therapy is worth having. These sessions cover the Lebanese Arabic side, which an NDIS-funded English-language plan does not reach.

Why the third generation loses it fastest

Australian schooling is entirely English-medium, community language schools run a few hours a week at most, and the peer environment is English from the first day of kindergarten. The pattern Lebanese-Australian families describe is consistent: the child understands everything said at a family gathering and responds to none of it in Arabic. This is receptive-dominant bilingualism rather than a disorder, and it is very workable — but it does not correct itself, and it gets harder each year. Six is much easier than twelve; twelve is still worth doing.

Timing from Beirut

Sydney and Melbourne run seven to nine hours ahead of Beirut depending on the season. In practice this works better than the distance suggests: an early-evening session in Australia falls in the Beirut morning, and after-school slots at 4pm Sydney time are late morning in Beirut. Australian families are among the easiest to schedule, and Saturday works well for both sides.

Paying from Australia

Session fees can be paid by card, or through Whish Money and OMT — the same channels Lebanese families in Australia already use for transfers home, so there is nothing new to set up. Fees are agreed in writing before the first session.

Questions From Lebanese Families Abroad

No. NDIS funds registered Australian providers, and Ghinwa practises in Lebanon. Sessions are private and paid directly. If you have NDIS funding, spend it on your local speech pathologist — that is what it is for. Families typically use these sessions as the additional Arabic-language component, which no NDIS plan will cover because no local provider offers it in Lebanese Arabic.

No, but be clear about what you're asking for. If the child's English is developing normally and the concern is only that Arabic has faded, that is language maintenance, not a speech disorder — and it responds better to structured, regular Arabic input than to clinical intervention. We will tell you honestly which one you're dealing with after an assessment. If there's a genuine speech or language difficulty underneath, it will be visible in the English too, and that's a different conversation.

If you can get one with availability, do. Two things send families here anyway: waiting lists, and dialect. Many Arabic-speaking practitioners in Sydney work in Egyptian or Gulf Arabic, or in Modern Standard, and a Lebanese child practising target words in a dialect their family doesn't speak gets less out of each session than they should.

Lebanese Arabic Therapy, Wherever You Live

Send a WhatsApp message with your child's age, the languages spoken at home, and your time zone. You'll get a straight answer about whether online sessions fit your situation — and an honest one if they don't.

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