Specialist and Outreach Teams: Speech and Language Therapy Service

The Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Service supports children and young people in Doncaster and Bassetlaw aged 2-16 years who have difficulties with communication, or with eating, drinking and swallowing. We also support young people aged 16 – 19 years old who have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) who are attending schools in Doncaster and Bassetlaw.

About the Service

The Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Service provide assessment, diagnosis and treatment for children and young people with speech, language, communication, and feeding and swallowing difficulties.

The service sees children and young people in clinics, hospitals, schools, nurseries and other early years settings, and at home.

Children’s Speech and Language Therapy Service

How can a child be referred?

The child must meet the threshold for accessing specialist Speech and Language Therapy care on our communication checklist

Referrals can be made by anyone, including parents/carers, schools, GPs, and Health Visitors. Referrals from professionals must be made with parent/carer knowledge and consent.

Referrals can be made by downloading and completing the referral form and communication checklist.

Referrals for eating, drinking, and swallowing difficulties must be made using our feeding referral form.

Referral Forms

What difficulties does the service support with?

The majority of difficulties fall into the following areas:

understanding what is said to them
expressing themselves
talking clearly (saying speech sounds)
stammering
eating and drinking

How to access the service?

To access the service children and young people must:

have a Doncaster or Bassetlaw GP
be aged 2-18 years old
have speech and language needs that meet the criteria for specialist SLT care for their age (see S&LT communication checklist)

An immediate referral should be made if a child:

is stammering or if a parent reports hearing stammering, or
has difficulty with the mechanics of eating and drinking (not sensory / or behavioural feeding difficulties), or
has nasal regurgitation of food
makes most of their speech sounds at the back of their throat
has significantly nasal sounding speech