Children’s Therapy Services - Speech & Language Therapy Team

Referrals to the Children's Speech and Language Therapy service can be made by a range of education, social care and health professionals. All referrals to children's services are made through the Referral Management Centre (RMC).

1. Children / young people aged 0-19 years
2. Consent from the person with parental responsibility
3. Registered with a Northamptonshire GP*
4. Children / young people with an identified speech, language or communication need who would benefit from specialist assessment and support

If a child is not registered with a Northamptonshire GP, even if they are resident in Northamptonshire or go to a Northamptonshire school, an extra-contractual referral agreement may be required. Please liaise directly with the service for advice.

Looked-after children placed in Northamptonshire, or Northamptonshire children placed elsewhere, may be seen where practically possible. Please liaise directly with the service for advice.

* Some GP practices on the boundaries of Northamptonshire and neighbouring counties may also meet the referral criteria. If you are unsure, please contact the team by emailing childsalt@nhft.nhs.uk for advice. 

If you are considering making a referral for specialist support around a young person's talking or communication needs, please provide some personalised information about their current strengths and needs, including:

• How they are communicating to get their wants and needs met (e.g. leading parents, bringing them things, using single spoken words)
• If they are using spoken language, what do they enjoy talking about (with examples of what they might say / phrases they might use in different contexts throughout their day)?
• Is your child's language difficulty impacting on their learning, social interaction or well-being? If so, how?
• What is being sought or hoped for from specialist assessment and intervention?
• What do you and parents feel you are already doing that is supporting their language / communication needs? How are they responding to this?

Speech screen

If the concerns are around a difficulty with saying certain sounds or the clarity of a child's speech, please refer to our Speech Screen [pdf] 1MB resource. Write in the boxes what the child says for each word so we can analyse the speech more accurately and determine if specialist support from our service is required. Look at the left-hand column, which indicates when sounds emerge and when sounds are delayed and require specialist assessment. A referral is appropriate if sounds are more than 6 months delayed.

Selective mutism pathway

For young people who might speak more freely at home but are unable to speak when outside the home (or there are people present who aren't immediate family), please refer to the Selective mutism pathway referral checklist [docx] 37KB.

Dysphagia

For dysphagia referrals, we require detailed information from a medical professional outlining specific eating and drinking challenges the child is facing, such as:

• Are they displaying signs of aspiration?
• Frequent chest infections?
• Difficulty with weaning (if so, what specific difficulty)?
• Failure to thrive?

Re-referrals

If a child has previously received assessment or an episode of care from the service and there are any changes in their communication or language skills which require problem-solving and collaboration with family regarding the home environment, then a new episode of care could be considered.

Families can contact the service by emailing childsalt@nhft.nhs.uk should this be something they wish to discuss in the future.