Speech and language therapy referral guidelines

The Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) service

The SLT service is provided through a 3 tier system. Not all children and young people (CYP) with a speech, language or communication need (SLCN) require a referral to the SLT service. For many children, their SLCN can be met through family, carers, setting staff or other professionals implementing advice and support at a universal and targeted level.

In most cases, universal and targeted support needs to be implemented for at least 3 months before a referral can be made to the SLT service. 

 

Three Tier Targeted Support as described in the text below

 

The 3 tier system:

  • Specialist means needs specific support: Helping children and young people overcome barriers they may face to support them to be happy, healthy, safe and independent.
  • Targeted means need some support: Enabling children and young people with identified needs to receive early support and intervention from school, college or nursery staff to meet that need.
  • Universal is for everyone: Increasing awareness of physical difficulties, speech, language and communication needs, and functional needs in daily living and participation.

Referral criteria

If you are concerned about the child/young person’s (CYP) understanding of language, spoken language, social communication and/or speech sounds please select the child or young person's age below:

If you are concerned about the child or young person's stammer, voice, deafness, feeding difficulties or mutism please select on the relevant link below:

Information about making a referral

Before making a referral  

To make sure your referral is appropriate and can be accepted, you must:

  1. check the SLT Service referral criteria (above) to confirm the child or young person meets our criteria
  2. complete all required pre‑referral actions listed in the guidelines (for example, using recommended strategies from our webinars or completing the speech screen). The referral form will ask for details of what you have completed and the impact of these.

Referrals will not be accepted if these steps have not been completed.

How to make the referral  

You can make a referral via our online referral form

Areas we cannot accept referrals for:

  • dribbling
  • dyslexia
  • reading and writing difficulties
  • bilingual children where there is not a difficulty in the home language
  • voice difficulties without a report from ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat team)
  • voice difficulties for children under 8 years old
  • tongue tie when there is no impact on speech sound production
  • behavioural and / or sensory/aversive feeding difficulties.

Service pathway explained 

Further information about the service pathway and service offer.

How can we help you?

  1. Work with us
  2. Our services
  3. Children's services
  4. Adult services
  5. Make a referral