Our services

Speech and Language Therapy – children and young people

About the service

Our Speech and Language Therapy team provides specialist advice and support for families of children and young people aged 18 months to 18 years who live in Bradford and have speech, language or communication needs.  These include:

We also support children and young people with eating, drinking and swallowing problems.

If you’re unsure what to expect in terms of a child’s speech and language development, please visit the ages and stages section of the Speech and Language UK website for a helpful overview. For under fives, you may also find the Talking Bradford Speech and Language pathway useful as it maps support offered across Bradford district.

Our ‘how you can help‘ tab below takes you to information, advice and strategies to support your child with their speech, language and communication skills according to their age. There are many other helpful sources of support under the ‘useful resources‘ tab too.

If you’re a professional, please see the ‘for professionals‘ tab below for relevant information.


How to access

Our Speech and Language Therapy team has an advice line for parents, carers and families. Please note, the advice line is for advice only, it cannot be used for referrals – please see the ‘what to expect’ tab below for referral information.

QR code for parent advice line, children's Speech and Language TherapyIf you are already known to us – please call 01274 221166 to book an appointment for a 25-minute call.

If you have not used our services before – please use the QR code to book an appointment for a 25-minute call

If you’re a professional looking for advice or how to refer, please see the professionals tab below.


How to find us

We have over 70 members of staff working in lots of different places including community clinics, nurseries, schools and children’s own homes.


Contact

Please use our advice line to contact us for advice, or email speechandlanguagetherapy@bdct.nhs.uk

Use the tabs below to explore this section further.

What to expect

Referral

Before you refer your child to our service, we ask you to select the ‘how you can help’ tab and try the appropriate ideas and activities given for your child’s age, for a period of 10 weeks. Our advice line can support you with this (see ‘how to access our service’ above for contact details).

If your child is still not making progress with their speech, language and communication, it may be appropriate for them to be referred to us for specialist support.

We recommend you ask your child’s health visitor or nursery to complete a screening to check your child’s needs are appropriate for our service. They can also help you to complete our referral form, which should include details of the different strategies you have already tried for at least 10 weeks.

If you wish to discuss this further, please contact our parent advice line (see ‘how to access’ for contact details) but please be aware, the advice line is only for advice and cannot be used for referrals.

Waiting list

If your child’s referral is accepted, they will be placed on our waiting list for an assessment.


How you can help

Please select your child’s age group below and click through for ideas and activities to try at home and when you are out and about to support your child to understand language, talk and interact socially.

18 – 24 months

Two to two and a half years

Two and a half to three years

Three to three and a half years

Three and a half to four years

Four to five years

Five to seven years

Seven to eleven years

Eleven years and over

 


Useful resources

The Talking Bradford Speech and Language Pathway – your guide to what Bradford district has to offer to support your child

Family Hubs – Bradford district, Keighley and Shipley – lots of services for families from conception, through childhood to young people.

Speech and language UK – advice line for parents and carers and ‘talking with your toddler’ webinar series.

Afasic Helpline for parents – a ‘listening ear’, no query too small or silly

Support for pre-school children

If you live in or around BD3, BD4 and BD5 your child may be able to access assessment from Language Development workers and support from Talking Together.

Portage – a home visiting educational service for families with pre-school children who have additional support needs

Libraries for under 5s – resources and activities that can support your child’s speech and language development.

Support for autistic children and young people and their families

If your child is autistic, or under-going or waiting for an autism diagnosis, the websites below provide support, resources and advice

AWARE (aware-uk.org) – a parent-run group supporting families with children and young adults on the autistic spectrum (formal diagnosis is not required).

National Autistic Society (autism.org.uk) – offers a range of resources and advice, working to transform lives and change attitudes to help create a society that works for autistic people.

Parent toolkit | Ambitious about Autism– a national charity for autistic children and young people, providing information and practical support.

Support — PAST (p-ast.co.uk) – provide support and advice for families of neurodivergent children and teenagers.

Pandas (pandasonline.org) – learn about autism with neurobears.

Spectrum Gaming – a safe online community for autistic young people which aims to support young people aged 8 and above to build friendships and increase self-acceptance of their diagnosis


For professionals

If you’re a professional working with children who need additional support with their speech, language and communication development you will find details here on how to access support and how to refer into our service.

Due to high levels of referrals and long waiting lists, we ask you to please use the resources offered and follow our referral criteria and ‘how to refer’ information ahead of referring a child to us. Thank you.