There is no single age at which a child should see a speech therapist. There are signs. Below are the ones that, in practice, make an assessment reasonable, grouped by area - because a parent often notices one side and does not connect it to another.
Speech and pronunciation
- The child speaks, but people outside the family find them hard to understand.
- They substitute one sound for another, or leave sounds out of words.
- They have difficulty with sounds such as R, RR, L, LL, S, SH, K, G.
- They repeat sounds or words, or the word blocks.
- They avoid words containing a particular sound.
Language and understanding
- They do not use words appropriate to their age, or vocabulary has stopped growing.
- They have difficulty understanding simple instructions.
- They do not join words into sentences when their age would expect it.
- Sentences stay clipped, without linking words.
- They have difficulty recounting an event or answering questions.
Social communication
- They do not respond when called by name.
- Eye contact is rare.
- They do not share attention with you towards a common object.
- They have difficulty holding a conversation or taking turns.
- They have difficulty playing with other children.
Reading and writing
- Reading is slow and full of errors, even after long practice.
- They confuse similar letters.
- They do not remember what they read.
- Spelling errors repeat in the same way.
- Homework takes far too long and ends in tears.
Two signs not to wait on
Two situations deserve assessment without delay, whatever the age and however well the other areas are going. The first is regression: the loss of words, gestures or skills the child previously had. The second is when the child is suffering for the difficulty - avoiding speech, withdrawing, becoming self-conscious.
If you are not sure, that is reason enough for an initial assessment. A parent's uncertainty is information, not over-worrying.