Speech
therapy referral criteria0-12 months
- Children who are failing to develop normal feeding patterns, i.e.sucking, swallowing, chewing and moving on to solids.
- If a child appears not to be understanding language, i.e. names of objects.
- Child not attempting to communicate verbally.
2 years
- If child has a vocabulary of less than 30 words or no phrases.
3 years
- If child is not putting words together in phrases and short sentences.
- Is unintelligible.
- If child is dysfluent or stammering and parents are anxious.
4 years
- If child is not able to hold a conversation with an adult using complex sentences.
- Is unintelligible to family.
- If child is dysfluent or stammering.
NB: Children with speech and language problems should always have their hearing tested and if the results are not conclusive, a referral should also be made to ENT.