Surge in wait times for speech therapy services
MORE than 1,500 children are waiting over a year for speech and language services, new figures have revealed.
As many as 29,481 kids are waiting for the service across the country, with 1,567 of those being forced to wait over a year, according to Barnardos.
The children’s charity warned that a ‘postcode lottery’ can result in youngsters in blackspots being forced to wait up to four years to avail of speech and language therapy.
Nationally, there has been an increase of 44.5% in the number of children waiting longer than one year for an initial assessment.
Barnardos head of advocacy, June Tinsley, said that there is a huge regional variation in service provision and wait times, and that the south of the country seems to be a particular blackspot.
‘Children in an area with a high level of service delays could be waiting more than four years to fully avail of speech and language therapy – these kind of waits will have a devastating impact on a child’s ability to communicate for the rest of his or her life,’ said Ms Tinsley.
Sixty-nine per cent of children are assessed within the first four months, although this percentage has fallen significantly since this time last year, when it was at 78%, according to Barnardos.
A further 28% of children are now waiting up to a year for an assessment.
Kerry, North Cork and West Cork are some of the areas that have the most children waiting longer than one year for initial speech and language assessment. One parent, who did not wish to be named, said: ‘My child waited nine months to be seen by a speech and language therapist. No diagnosis was made – and he was simply placed back on the list for another 12 months. He had never spoken a word at the age of two and a half.’