No, you do not need a referral to see us. But if you are referred from your GP, teacher or other health professional, we can work with them and keep them up to date with your child’s goals, treatment and progress.

Finding Our Voice will commit to applying for Early Intervention funding to ease the costs of essential therapy to the children identified as ‘at-risk’ or in need of ongoing therapy. This will provide financial relief to the families of these children and will enable further assessment costs for potential neurological differences to be covered by funding packages.

Finding Our Voice commits to providing ongoing intervention to children identified as being at-risk. The delivery of this therapy will depend on the nature of the areas of weakness and the presentation of the individual child.

In Australia, speech and language impairment in school aged children is significant, with studies revealing that 13% of children at primary & secondary schools have a communication impairment.

Undiagnosed communication difficulties in kindergarten and pre-primary aged children can result in poorer educational and social outcomes during primary and secondary schooling. Based upon 2013 Australian school enrolments, approximately 474,000 school children currently suffer from communication impairment. Australian teachers report that 21% of school students have an expressive language difficulty upon entering schooling and a further 16% have a receptive language difficulty.

Early identification of speech and language difficulties can lead to intervention support and positive social and academic outcomes, at school, home and within the wider community. The purpose of an early years, developmental speech and language screen, is to identify children that are at risk for neurological differences, persistent language delay (e.g. limited vocabulary, poor grammar, difficulty following instructions, understanding concepts etc.), pre-literacy and literacy difficulties, dysfluency (stuttering), difficulties producing speech sounds and atypical development of social skills. With the option of providing early intervention support within the home and school environment.

Finding Our Voice are passionate about identifying at-risk children and providing accurate diagnoses from the earliest possible stage in a child’s life. This enables children to access appropriate evidence-based therapy targeting their areas of difficulty, and prevents the negative outcomes of social disengagement, school refusal, illiteracy and mental health disorders that are common when a diagnosis is missed or overlooked.

Autism is typically diagnosed via a multidisciplinary team, including a pediatrician, psychologist and speech pathologist.

The Australian guideline for the diagnosis and assessment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) was published in 2018 and recommends that the following steps are followed to ensure an accurate and timely diagnostic process:

1. Assessment of function: this involves a parent based diagnostic interview, led by a specialised speech pathologist. The interview will investigate your child’s behaviors, speech and language, daily living skills, friendships and school and home life. The interview aims to assess your child’s strengths and or challenges and help the practitioner determine if your child requires any functional support or developmental delays.

2. Medical assessment: a pediatrician will examine your child and conduct tests to see if there could be a medical cause for their developmental delays. Finding Our Voice works closely with key developmental pediatricians in Perth, allowing for a seamless, time sensitive process.

3. Diagnostic assessment: if the pediatrician is unable to find another cause for your child’s behaviour a full cognitive screen and autism diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS-2) will be completed to evaluate the possible presence of Autism.