Questions to Ask a Speech Therapist for Your Child
Questions for a parent at a child's speech and language appointment, covering what the assessment found, which difficulty is being worked on first, what practice at home looks like, how progress will be measured, what the school needs to know, cost and scheduling, and how therapy ends. These are questions to bring to the appointment rather than a substitute for one.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
In plain words, what did you find?
Ask for the summary before the report, and ask for it without the terminology. If you cannot repeat the answer to your partner that evening, you have not been given a usable version, and the written report will not fix that on its own.
- 2
Is this speech, language, or both?
These are different problems with different practice at home. Speech generally refers to producing sounds; language refers to understanding words and putting them together. A child can be hard to understand with strong language, or perfectly clear with weak language, and the plans do not look alike.
- 3
Where is my child compared with other children the same age?
You are asking whether this is at the late end of normal or outside the expected range, because that distinction drives everything else. Ask which comparison group the test used, since standard scores from different assessments are not interchangeable.
- 4
What do you think is behind it, and how confident are you?
The confidence half matters. An honest therapist will often say the cause is unclear at this stage, and that is more useful than a tidy explanation. What you want to know is whether the plan changes if the current working theory turns out to be wrong.
- 5
Does anything else need checking first?
Hearing is the usual answer, including intermittent hearing loss from repeated ear infections, which can be missed. Ask whether a recent hearing test exists and what other referrals, if any, they would want before or alongside therapy.
- 6
What are we working on first, and why that?
Therapists usually pick one or two targets rather than everything on the list, because progress in one area often carries others with it. Ask what made this the first target, and what is deliberately being left until later, so you are not worrying about the untouched items.
- 7
What actually happens in a session?
Sessions can look like play, and parents watching from a chair sometimes conclude nothing therapeutic is going on. Ask what the play is doing. It also tells you whether you will be in the room, which changes how much you can carry into the week.
- 8
How long before we should expect to see a change, and what will the first change be?
The first sign of progress is often not clearer speech. It might be more attempts, more frustration, or a new sound appearing only in one word. Knowing what to watch for stops you concluding it is not working in week three.
- 9
What would tell us this is not working?
Ask this at the start, while the plan is still being written. You want a rough timescale and a named checkpoint at which the approach would be changed, so that a plateau is reviewed rather than absorbed into an open-ended run of appointments.
- 10
How much practice at home, how often, and what does it look like?
Get a number and an example. Ten minutes daily and one long session a week are not equivalent, and vague instructions to model good speech are impossible to follow. Ask them to demonstrate once with your child while you watch.
- 11
Can you write the home practice down, or let me film you doing it?
Instructions given verbally at the end of an appointment do not survive the car park. A short video of the therapist doing the exercise with your child is the most reliable thing to take home, and most will agree if you ask.
- 12
What should we not do?
Parents often introduce habits that work against the plan with the best intentions: correcting every attempt, making the child repeat words until they are right, finishing their sentences, or asking them to perform for relatives. Ask for the list rather than waiting to be told.
- 13
How do we keep practice from turning into a fight?
This is the most common reason home programmes stop, and therapists have seen it many times. Ask specifically what to do on days the child refuses, and whether a shorter session or a different moment in the day is better than pushing through.
- 14
Who else at home should be doing this?
Consistency across adults matters, and one parent usually absorbs the whole job. Ask what grandparents, childminders and older siblings should do differently, and what is fine to leave to you alone.
- 15
What should the school or nursery be doing, and will you talk to them?
Ask whether they will contact the setting directly, whether that costs extra, and what you should request in writing. A therapist's note to a teacher generally carries more weight than a parent relaying the same information.
- 16
How aware is my child of this, and how should we talk about it at home?
Children often know more than adults assume, and may already be avoiding words or situations. Ask what language to use with them, and what to say to a sibling or a classmate who asks, so the family is not improvising separate answers.
- 17
What do we do if other children start commenting on it?
Teasing is a practical problem with practical answers, and therapists usually have phrases that have worked for other families. Ask whether the school should be told before it happens rather than after.
- 18
What does this cost, how many sessions are we talking about, and what is covered?
Get the per-session fee, the expected block length, what a review costs, and what your insurance or public funding covers, including whether a referral or reassessment is needed to keep it. Ask what happens to the place if you pause.
- 19
Will it be you every time, and what happens when you are away?
Continuity matters more with young children, who may spend the first sessions of any new relationship saying nothing. Ask about holiday cover, waiting lists between blocks, and whether a break over the summer is expected to cost ground.
- 20
What does the end of therapy look like?
Ask what discharge criteria they are working towards, what happens if progress stops before that point, and what you should watch for afterwards. Some difficulties resolve and some are managed long term, and knowing which conversation you are in changes how you plan the next few years.
Getting the most from the appointment
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Before you go
Before you go
- Write down three specific examples of what worries you, with the actual words your child used and who was listening. Examples are more use to a therapist than adjectives.
- Record a minute or two of ordinary talking at home. Children often speak very differently in a clinic room, and a clip prevents an assessment based on their quietest hour of the week.
- Bring any hearing test results, previous reports, and the names of anyone else already involved through the school or health service.
- Note when you first noticed it, and whether it has changed since in either direction. Direction of travel is one of the first things you will be asked.
- Ask your child's teacher what they see, before the appointment rather than after. Their account of a full day is information nobody else in the room has.
In the room
In the room
- Put your top three questions first. Appointments end earlier than they sound, and the questions at the bottom of the list rarely get asked.
- Ask for the spelling of any term you have not heard before so you can look it up without guessing.
- Repeat the plan back in your own words before you leave and let them correct it. Corrections at this point are quick and free.
- Ask what you should notice at home in the next month if things are going in the right direction.
- Ask who to contact between appointments, and for what kind of question, so you are not saving up something urgent for six weeks.
Terms you may hear
Terms you may hear
Receptive and expressive
Receptive refers to understanding what is said, expressive to producing it. Reports usually score them separately, and the gap between the two scores is often the thing the therapist is really explaining.
Articulation and phonology
These both concern speech sounds but are described differently: one is about producing a sound, the other about the pattern of sounds a child uses across words. Ask which is being worked on, because the home practice differs.
Standard scores, centiles and age equivalents
Results are usually reported by comparison with children of the same age rather than as a mark out of a total. Age equivalents are the easiest to misread. Ask what the number means for that particular test.
Titles vary by country
The same profession is called speech and language therapist in some countries and speech-language pathologist in others, and the registration and funding rules differ accordingly. Ask which body they are registered with.
Blocks and discharge
Therapy is often delivered in blocks of sessions with a review at the end, and a gap between blocks is normal rather than a sign of being dropped. Ask what triggers the next block and who arranges it.