A to Z of services

The Croydon Children’s Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) service provide speech, language, communication and eating and drinking support, for children and young people in the borough of Croydon, from birth to their 19^th birthday. To access the service, children and young people must have a Croydon address and/or are registered with a Croydon GP.

Specialist support is for children and young people whose speech, language, communication or eating and drinking needs are impacting on them in a way that only a Speech and Language Therapist supporting them can reduce this impact.

Learn more about Children's Speech and Language Therapy including our early years services, deafness services, eating, drinking and swallowing service, and stammering services here

The service vision is that the Speech and Language Therapy Team will minimise the impact of speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) and eating and drinking difficulties and maximise functional skills in these areas within each child’s individual potential.

Our services

• Early Years Service: For children up to the age of 5 (or the term before starting reception at school), who have/may have speech, language or communication difficulties.

 

• Deafness service: Children and young people aged 0 to 19 years old, who have a permanent deafness. For school-aged children, communication difficulties associated with deafness must be their primary need.    

 

• Eating, drinking and swallowing (EDS) service:  For people (0-19 years) who present with signs of aspiration when eating and drinking, in addition to respiratory health concerns/ recurrent chest infections, children presenting with overt signs of aspiration who have an underlying diagnosis that increases vulnerability to dysphagia (e.g. prematurity, cardiac, cerebral palsy, epilepsy etc), children experiencing poor respiratory health where silent aspiration is suspected or confirmed by their medical team and children who currently have a feeding tube and are showing readiness for weaning, where there have been previous concerns regarding aspiration, but have the potential to develop some oral skills or wean off their tube.

 

• Stammering service: Children and young people from the term before starting school (Reception) to 19th birthday, who have a stammer or cluttering (a speech pattern that is perceived as being too fast, too irregular or jerky, or both).

Find out more about these services, including resources and contact details here.

 

Related organisations and services

• Local Education Authority (schools, ELPs, Children’s Centres, maintained nurseries, SEND, Educational Psychologists)
• Out of Borough and Independent Schools (where you are accessing a clinic based service)
• Youth Offending Service (YOS)
• Early Years Support Service
• Children’s Centres
• Social Services, particularly in safeguarding
• Private & Voluntary Nurseries
• Croydon Opportunity Preschool Group
• Staff in tertiary centres (e.g. South Thames Cleft Palate Service )