My child has finished speech & language therapy, or no longer finds it helpful. What can we try next?

If your child has expressed that their Speech and Language Therapy sessions are not feeling helpful, it can be worthwhile arranging to have a chat with their therapist to explore this. Their therapist wants your child to benefit as much as possible from the therapy sessions, so sharing your feedback is important. 

It might also be a useful exercise to revisit your child’s therapy goals. Do they still agree with all the goals? Do they feel like they are working towards them? This discussion may be all it takes to make some helpful changes to your child’s experience.

If it feels like this conversation hasn’t been effective and you wish to consider working with a different therapist, you can ask the Therapy Services Manager if there is scope to do this within the service. If this is possible, it will be important to take into account that there may be a wait for another therapist to become available. 

Self-funding Speech and Language sessions with an Independent Therapist is another possibility, if this is an option available to your family, you might like to take a look at the links at the bottom of this article.  

Can I re-refer?

If your child has completed their Speech and Language Therapy sessions, but you feel they would benefit from some further support, you may wish to consider exploring re-referral options and/or other support that is available for children and young people who stammer from other organisations.

The option to re-refer following completion of your child’s block of therapy will differ between services. If you would like to find out whether the Speech and Language Therapy service you previously accessed will accept a re-referral, you can contact them directly. 

Alternatively, if your family has recently relocated, you may be unsure about what the local NHS service has to offer. Get in touch with our Support Hub Advisor, if you are looking for information about your new local NHS service.

Beyond Speech & Language Therapy: Support available through ASC

Most of Action for Stammering Children’s projects have been developed for children and young people in their adolescence, as we know that it can be more difficult to find local support for stammering at this age. 

From residential group therapy programmes to career mentoring schemes, we fully fund courses for young people up to the age of 25 living in the UK. You might like to look at our offer by following the link below. 

Useful links:

• How can I access independent speech & language therapy?
• What support does ASC offer adolescents?