Children's speech and language therapy

About

Specialist paediatric speech and language therapists work with infants and children on our wards with feeding and swallowing difficulties.

We provide evidence-based specialist assessment, treatment and advice to parents/carers of infants and children with eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties in a multidisciplinary clinical setting.

Referrals are accepted from consultants within the Trust or a member of the multidisciplinary team.

Our therapists work with inpatients on our paediatric wards and in our paediatric and neonatal intensive care units at Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea and St Mary’s hospitals.

In addition, a small specialist outpatient service is offered for infants and children with feeding and swallowing difficulties and their families. This service includes a paediatric videofluoroscopy clinic at St Mary's Hospital and a multidisciplinary feeding clinic held at Hammersmith Hospital that combines psychology and dietetics.

Occasionally children may be seen at home when it is best practice to assess children's feeding behaviour in their own surroundings.

We work hard to promote a positive feeding experience for both the infant/child and parent/carer, facilitate optimal oral feeding development and promote growth.

Further online resources

• The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) 
• Bliss – the preterm baby charity 
• Living with reflux 

Clinics

Our children's speech and language therapy service is delivered at Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte's & Chelsea and St Mary's hospitals.

Multidisciplinary feeding clinic, Hammersmith Hospital

Speech and language therapy/dietetics and clinical psychology

Address

Children's outpatient department
Ground floor
D block
Hammersmith Hospital
Du Cane Road
London W12 0HS

Hours

Tuesdays 09.00 to 12.00

Contact information

Therapists phone: 020 3313 5802
Therapists email: annie.aloysius@nhs.net or kristy.o'connor@nhs.net
Dietetics phone: 020 3313 35805
Clinical psychology phone: 020 3313 2472

Paediatric speech and language therapy outpatient clinics, St Mary's Hospital

Address

Outpatient paediatric department
Sixth floor
Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother (QEQM) building
St Mary’s Hospital
Praed Street
London W2 1NY

Please note: The Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother (QEQM) building is accessible via South Wharf Road.

Paediatric videofluoroscopy clinic (held Tuesday mornings), St Mary's Hospital

Address

Imaging department
Third floor
QEQM building
St Mary’s Hospital
Praed Street
London W2 1NY

Contact information

Therapists phone: 020 3312 6938/6092
Therapists email: sandra.grosso@nhs.net or kristy.o'connor@nhs.net

Meet the team

Our children's speech and language therapy service is managed by a team of specialists.

Speech and language specialists

Sandra Grosso, clinical service lead speech and language therapist (paediatrics and paediatric acute)
Annie Aloysius, clinical specialist speech and language therapist (neonatology)
Kristy O’Connor, specialist speech and language therapist (paediatrics and neonatology)

Patient information

Find out what to expect at your child's speech and language therapy appointment.

Before your appointment

Inpatients are seen within two working days of us receiving the referral. Outpatients are seen within four weeks of receipt of referral.

Parents, carers, a relative or close family friend are welcome to attend appointments.

If there is anything specific you need to know before the appointment in order to prepare you will receive information with your appointment letter.

During your appointment

For outpatient appointments please make your way to the children’s outpatients department at whatever site your appointment is at.

Occasionally, appointments for videofluoroscopy swallow studies may incur some unforeseen delays due to late running appointments in the imaging department.

Please note that we are a teaching hospital, so medical students may be present for some appointments. If you do not wish to have them in the room please let the nurse or doctor know and the students will be asked to step outside.

Appointments generally last approximately an hour however, the initial appointments in the multidisciplinary feeding clinic will last for 90 minutes.

During an outpatient speech and language therapy appointment for feeding and swallowing, the speech and language therapist will ask questions regarding your child’s feeding and general development and may observe your child eating and drinking.

During the multidisciplinary feeding clinic you will see a dietitian, clinical psychologist and speech and language therapist during one appointment. This 90-minute appointment enables a full case history to be taken, a feeding observation and a discussion and plan of the way forward. The clinic typically supports families of preschool children who have persistent difficulties moving forward with weaning, self-feeding, choking episodes and faltering growth.

The speech and language therapist will complete a comprehensive feeding and swallowing assessment and following this may suggest a videofluoroscopic swallow study, a specialised x-ray test that looks at swallowing.

This test gives a clearer picture of what is happening inside the mouth and throat when eating and drinking and shows where food and liquid goes when swallowing. Additional information will be provided before the test within a paediatric videofluoroscopy information leaflet. You will receive this by post with the appointment letter.

During paediatric videofluoroscopy swallow studies, where possible parent/carers will be told of the results of the test immediately after the assessment. If further analysis is necessary, a time will be arranged to contact parents/carers with the results.

Patient information leaflets:

• Videofluoroscopy

 

Referrals

Find out how to refer patients to our speech and language therapy service.

GP referrals

Referrals to our Children’s sleep service should be made through NHS e-Referrals to the following service:
Paediatrics|Paediatric respiratory sleep TRIAGE|St Mary’s|Imperial NHS trust|RYJ

External referrals

GP

We do not accept direct GP referrals.

Secondary care

Paediatric speech and language therapy referrals for feeding assessment, including videofluoroscopy swallow studies, are accepted from community paediatricians, hospital based neonatologists, paediatricians and speech and language therapists at other hospitals.

Please contact us the department, our details can be found here.

s.net (please note there is an _ between paediatric and sleepreferrals)