Preserve
Maintain the history, authorship, core principles and authentic source of the Goulding System.
About SleepTalk LLC
Preserving a body of work. Supporting its future.
SleepTalk LLC exists to preserve, publish and promote the Goulding System and to support its careful development into new educational applications.
Our role is one of stewardship: maintaining the origins, history and core principles of the System while allowing its language, supporting material and applications to evolve where appropriate.
The SleepTalk Story
The work now associated with SleepTalk began in Australia and, from 1996, was introduced more widely to parents and practitioners through books, training and consultant education.
Joane Goulding developed the original child-focused approach while searching for ways to support her daughter Michelle, who faced significant developmental and communication challenges, including cerebral palsy, dyspraxia and selective mutism.
Michelle's difficulty expressing herself became one of the experiences that led Joane to explore whether calm, repeated messages of love and reassurance could reach her in another way. The work that grew from those early experiences later became the Goulding System.
Michelle Goulding went on to lead a largely independent adult life. She married, maintained her own home, worked, and travelled overseas with her husband—an outcome very different from the restricted future once anticipated for her.
David Dixon, a longtime friend and colleague of Joane Goulding, now carries forward the stewardship of her work through SleepTalk LLC, with responsibility for preserving the Goulding System and supporting its continuing development.
The Goulding System Today
The Goulding System is now supported through contemporary books, narrated resources and online educational material.
SleepTalk LLC's primary objective is to ensure that the System remains clearly connected to its origins while continuing to be presented in a form that is useful to today's parents and families.
This includes preserving historical material, maintaining the integrity of the core approach, refining terminology where greater clarity is needed, and developing supporting resources that make the System easier to understand and use.
Preserve. Promote. Develop.
Promote
Make the System accessible through books, audio resources, online material and education.
Develop
Allow the presentation and appropriate applications of the System to evolve without losing sight of where it began.
Looking Ahead
SleepTalk LLC also supports the development of new educational applications inspired by the broader principles behind the System.
The first of these is The Hello Baby Guide — SleepTalk for Pregnancy, which is being developed as a prenatal introduction to positive, loving communication before birth.
Future development will follow the same principle: preserve the integrity of the original System while considering carefully where its underlying ideas may have useful new applications.
Learn More
For detailed information about the Goulding System, its books and current resources:
For an overview of SleepTalk LLC's current projects: