Healthy child, healthy future: speech and language therapy for children

This resource, updated for 2019, is designed to reinforce a collaborative approach between speech and language therapists, referrers and parents in the identification and management of children with developmental speech and language and communication needs (including children with feeding and/or swallowing difficulties).

It includes a comprehensive key skills section, which provides details on the communication-related skills a child should have acquired at each stage in his/her early years development. It also includes specific criteria and guidelines for referral, should there be concern about whether the child has a significant problem.

The resource provides additional guidance on:

• communication and child play;
• speech sound development;
• dummies;
• stammering;
• dysphonia;
• bilingualism;
• feeding and swallowing difficulties.

Lists of supplementary leaflets, handouts and websites, as well as a bibliography, are also included.