Visiting a Speech Pathologist

What will happen in the first session?

At your first appointment, the SLP will collect information about your concerns, your child’s communication skills, and any relevant background information.  This may occur through observation, parent report and by administering some assessments.  The assessment appointment will often be booked for 1 hour, but may take longer, depending upon your child and their needs.   Sometimes a subsequent session will need to be scheduled.   For an additional fee, a written report is usually provided as part of this process.

All About Kids offers a range of assessments which will help to diagnose and work out the best way to support your child/family. Assessment tools include: 

• informal assessment including observations during play and other activities
• formal assessment tools that must be done a certain way and give scores that compare to average development
• interviewing you or having you fill out checklists to gather more information

Some of the areas that you and your therapist may consider and talk about are:

• Speech sound skills
• Listening and understanding skills
• Verbal expression and speaking skills
• Literacy skills including reading and spelling
• Stuttering / dysfluency
• Social communication and friendships
• Working with specific diagnoses such as autism spectrum disorder
• School readiness

All About Kids offers a range of assessments which will help to diagnose and work out the best way to support your child/family. For example:

• Assessment of speech skills
• Language assessment including receptive and expressive language abilities
• Communication and pragmatic language assessments
• Prep readiness assessments   
• Assessment for dyslexia and significant reading difficulties 

See our assessment section for more information about assessments

Tell me about Therapy Sessions

If treatment for your child is recommended, a block of therapy sessions will often be planned.   Sessions will be carefully planned around your child’s individual needs, and based on the best available research evidence.  Sessions are also designed for your child to succeed and have fun!  Treatment sessions are usually 30, 45 or 60 minutes weekly or fortnightly, but this can be tailored to your family’s needs. If regular attendance is difficult, talk to your therapist about alternate ways to deliver therapy. Therapy can be short or long term depending upon your child's diffiuclties. Problems which focus on one or two specific needs will take less time to correct than more complex language delays or complex literacy needs. 

When you child comes to therapy there are two important components we work on. They include working directly with your child and working with you. We make sure you understand what the difficulty is, how it impacts on your child's day to day successes, and how you can assist with therapy to get the best and fastest progress. Sometimes your school may also be able to help and our therapists will give you some information about strategies for school staff if you would like this.

Our Speech Language Pathologists are also available for school and child care visits for therapy, case meetings, information sessions, and therapy support visits.