Does a child/student require a speech and language pathology referral?

Concerns within any of the following areas support the need for a speech pathologist to be involved with a child’s development of skills:

• receptive language (understanding or comprehension)
• expressive language (oral language)
• attention
• literacy skills
• speech
• social skills

The following basic questionnaire is very useful. It identifies areas which support the need for a referral: https://pld-literacy.org/product/observations-of-a-student-to-accompany-a-referral-to-a-sp/

In terms of ‘speech or articulation,’ the PLD articulation or speech sound production screen will also identify if students require speech pathology services. It can be found here: https://pld-literacy.org/product/screen-of-speech-development/

The government-funded system is limited, particularly when children are over 6 years of age. Often parents are faced with a long wait period for a limited government-funded service or the need to investigate private services. As a child ages, often schools are faced with attempting to cater for students who clearly require specialist support.

Updated on: 21/02/2020