What Our Patients Say

We cannot recommend highly enough the outstanding service we have been receiving from Emily for our 3 year old daughter. From the initial consult, we finally breathed a sigh of relief that we had found a health professional who was, at last, taking a holistic approach to all the various issues our daughter was facing. Emily not only validated our concerns, but also gave us hope that our daughter could receive treatment that would change the trajectory for her breathing, eating and sleeping. Our daughter (and son) enjoy the individual activities Emily has given us as part of the ongoing treatment plan. She has also supported us with a report and clinical letter to obtain an ENT consultant appointment, and even created a video for our daughter's nursery outlining easy and accessible myofunctional activities that are being used to support our daughter further. Emily's care and professionalism, notwithstanding her ability to keep a 3 year old's attention during an online consultation, are of the highest quality. We are very grateful to her. Thank you, Emily.

I have recently completed 12 speech therapy sessions with Emily Kirkcaldy. They were excellent and have had a significant effect on my breathing and speech, especially when lecturing. I have been a university lecturer for many years, and in recent times I've had persistent throat problems. I wish I had had such speech therapy when I started lecturing, rather than after the problems have arisen.

Breathe First have changed my life in the space of 3 months.

At 34 I learned through the course of other therapies that my breathing was shallow and my tongue posture wasn’t resting correctly at the roof of my mouth or making contact here when I swallowed. I reached out because I’m a singer and was worried about the impact this was having on my voice.

My initial contact was with Louise who was swift and above-and-beyond helpful in arranging an initial assessment, as she has in organising sessions since. The assessment was carried in-person by Emily during which I learned I had numerous structural oral issues, that they were affecting my voice in many more ways than I considered, and that my voice was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of problems my oral issues were contributing to, including (not limited to) chronic pain, headaches, sinus symptoms, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, and postural and facial appearance trashing my confidence. I am neurodivergent and struggle with explaining and organising things and I found this process informative and accessible, with Emily taking time to get to know me, to genuinely listen and interpret my challenges and my goals, and by the end providing a detailed report outlining with my myofunctional issues, a therapy plan and a number of recommendations all tailored to my needs evident in how useful they continue to be.

Following some initial sessions focussed on my breathing, Emily paired me with Holly who has provided therapy since. This has primarily been online but also some in-person therapy. Holly has carried into therapy the bar Emily set in terms of insight and expertise. Holly’s manner is sensitive, warm, experienced, readily giving her own time where needed to ensure that I have all the tools I need to achieve the best possible result. This has been a great match and though early days is already showing in results exceeding what I could have expected.

With 3 months of therapy under my belt (without any procedures / structural corrections) already I wake up rested, am breathing the easiest I can remember, my voice is clearer, more resonant and less strained, sinus symptoms have drastically improved, my posture has improved, my face is more proportionate and symmetrical, complimenting other therapies driving in a domino-effect in toppling challenges in all areas of my life. As with all healthy things in life, it has required an investment of effort and time but what I’ve put in I feel already that I’m reaping dividends in my quality of life and then some. Mentally and physically, I really have never felt better.

The progress I’ve made is down to more than the actual process of myofunctional exercise. Breathe First have created a space that is safe, warm and effective, with intuition, conscientiousness and empathy shining through at every step. These guys are healers and I really could not recommend them enough. Given me my breath back.

Holly, Emily, and Louise - thank you so much.

Emily is fantastic in her field…I already know that she is going to play a crucial role in my child’s journey.

My son has worked with Emily for approximately 6 months over Zoom and in that time he has made more improvement with her than with any other practitioner we used before. I can't recommend her enough for speech/myofunctional therapy.

Super training with a very knowledgeable therapist. I’ve attended whole team training for Speech and Language Therapists. The training session was interactive, engaging and interesting. I walked away with practical strategies and techniques to use in assessments and therapy sessions that I could implement straight away. Emily has also continued to offer support after the training as needed. Thank you, Emily! I would highly recommend training to other SALTs - just wonderful!

My 6 year old son has been struggling with proper nasal breathing since birth due to posterior tongue tie. Emily has been very helpful to identify the root causes of the problem and set out a clear plan of action for myofunctional therapy. She has been very engaging with my son, showing patience, understanding and appreciation when appropriate. Since the therapy there has been a marked improvement in my son's tongue posture and ability to move his tongue correctly. I have also noticed a positive change of behaviour due to him getting a more rested sleep. I'm really pleased with the results so far and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Emily!

I took my 2.5 year old to see Emily and I left feeling so relieved to finally have some answers and solutions to what has been causing a multitude of issues for my son. Emily made her session fun, engaging and child friendly and was very thorough with her assessment! We have age appropriate games to play with my son to help work on what he needs to and I feel like we're finally on the right tracks to helping him after finding Emily online - thank you!

Emily has been amazing with helping my daughter with her speech, tongue function and nasal breathing. We have seen great progress by following Emily's fun but effective exercises.
She goes above and beyond and I couldn't recommend her more.

Working with Emily has been one of the best investments I've ever made in myself.

I originally approached Emily to help with some TMJ pain I'd had for a number of years. From the very first meeting we had, it was clear she was an expert in all things myo, and explained that a tongue tie was likely contributing to my issues.

Initially we had weekly sessions to work through various exercises tailored to me, and Emily has always been really clear about why we're doing particular things, and will adapt to my needs too.

The differences I've noticed from myo with Emily have been huge - along with my TMJ disappearing, I'm breathing better, sleeping better, looking better and even my posture has improved!

Emily was also able to recommend other experts to help on my journey, and joined me a couple of weeks ago for my tongue tie release procedure.

This has been a transformational experience for me, and I'd encourage anyone thinking about myo to work with Emily - the range of benefits of myo are huge, and Emily is one of the kindest, most well-informed and all-round lovely people I've worked with.

Emily is an extremely skilled therapist. Her service has been excellent, she has gone above and beyond to help me to reduce tension and increase function in my tongue, lips and jaw for singing and better sleep, and provide vital support before and after a frenectomy procedure. She has also helped with my son who has oromyofunctional difficulties and has a lovely manner with children too. I would recommend her to anyone wanting to feel in good hands and to breathe, sleep, speak, live better.

Emily was friendly and gave me excellent advice and guidance on my swallowing problem including holistic remedies I could adopt. I highly recommend Emily.