Eatability Feeding Services believes that all children should be provided with the right tools and support to develop in all areas. You may feel that something is not right with your child’s talking, understanding or communication. You may have been told “she will catch up, don’t worry”, “it’s normal for some children to talk late” or “my child didn’t talk until they were four then started using full sentences”. Your child may benefit from a speech pathology assessment if you have noticed the following:

• Is not babbling (eg “da da da”, “ma ma ma” “dada”) by 12 months
• Is not pointing and waving by 12 months
• Does not have at least 10 spontaneous (not copied) words by 18 months
• Does not understand simple commands or questions (eg don’t touch, where’s your nose?) by 18 months
• Does not have at least 50 words by 2 years
• Is not putting two words together (eg “daddy gone”, “more banana”) by 2 years
• Is not using 3-4 word sentences by 3 years
• Is not understood by a stranger at least 75% of the time at the age of 3
• Does not appear to understand or hear you
• Has any loss of speech, babbling or social skills at any time.

Eatability Feeding Services can determine if your child needs support with their talking, understanding and communication development. If your child is found to have some specific difficulties, then a block of therapy to help your child develop their skills may be recommended. Research shows that early intervention is best and we encourage you to seek help if you feel your child is having difficulty.

Our speech pathologists perform standardised and informal speech and language assessments for toddlers and children. Therapy sessions and/or programs are then developed to assist your child to reach their speech and language milestones successfully. We can also determine if your child would benefit from Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). There are a range of different AAC options for children with little or no speech including Key Word Sign (KWS), symbols, Pragmatically Organised Dynamic Display (PODD) books, iPads and speech generating devices.

Our speech pathologists are certified in a range of programs to support your child’s speech, language and communication including:

• Hanen It Takes Two To Talk (for parents of children 5 years or younger)
• Hanen More Than Words (for parents of children 5 years or younger on the autism spectrum and with other social communication difficulties)
• Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT)
• Key Word Sign Australia (KWS) Certified Trainer
• Pragmatically Organised Dynamic Display (PODD) 2 day introductory workshop.

If you are concerned about your child’s speech and language development, please refer to the Communication Milestone Checklists available from Speech Pathology Australia (SPA).

• 12 months old
• 18 months old
• 2 years old
• 3 years old
• 4 years old
• 5 years old