How we work

We encourage you, as parents, to trust your instincts. If you sense something 'just isn't quite right' with your child's communication, we can quickly arrange an assessment and, if appropriate, devise an individual programme of therapy designed to meet your son or daughter's needs.

Current waiting time for Speech and Language Therapy is 16 weeks on the NHS, which is a long time in language development terms. We offer an immediate response.

We have a four-step process: referral, assessment, recommendations, therapy.

Referrals

You can either get in touch with us directly about your child, or a health professional (eg: speech and language therapist, audiologist, paediatrician, health visitor) can refer him/her to us. After you have completed and sent in the initial enquiry form, we will contact you to arrange an assessment. At this point we will ask you to complete the detailed case history to give us as much background information as possible about your child. This will help us decide on the most appropriate form of assessment.

Assessment

The assessment is a collaborative process where the expertise of you, the parent, and the professional team are drawn together. Your contribution is therefore crucial to enable us to gain a comprehensive picture of your child. Our aim is to ascertain your child's strengths and weaknesses in order to advise on his/her therapy and educational needs as appropriate.

A number of assessments will be carried out, including parent interviews, so that we can get a full understanding of how your child responds in other environments.

The assessment will include:

An introduction by the professional team.
A discussion on your expectations of the assessment and any issues relating to your child's development.
An informal observation of your child within the play setting. This will be carried out by the Speech and Language Therapist, Occupational Therapist and Chartered Psychologist.
The Chartered Psychologist will be considering your child's cognition, attention, control, as well as his/her emotional development.
The Occupational Therapist will be looking at your child's physical development, sensory processing and independence skills.
The Speech and Language Therapist will be looking at your child's speech, language, social communication and play skills as appropriate.
Where relevant, and with your permission, we could video a short play session with your child. This would be used in our facilitation programme with you and your family and/or this could be used to assist in diagnosis or therapy

Recommendations

The team will collate their findings and discuss appropriate recommendations. This will be sent to you as a written report.

Therapy

The programme of therapy will start, following the team's recommendations.