orthodontist or speech therapist?

[ChipmunksInAttic]

Hello,

My 8 year old has a lisp which became more obvious after having his permanent teeth. He cannot pronounce “s” sounds, it comes out as an “f”, and same for z/v sounds. His upper teeth are a little forward and touching his lower lip which I believe contributing his trouble. He’s really bothered by how he sounds when speaking, and during the lockdown he had to make video/voice recordings for school homeworks, that’s how he started to get annoyed with his speech.

I think it’s not so bad and he may grow out of it, but I don’t want to ignore his trouble as he’s clearly not happy with his lisp. So I took him to GP a couple weeks ago, querying if it’s possible to have him referred to a speech therapist. GP said I’d need to get the referral from school first, so his school teacher should take action. That means we need to wait for school term.

Today I rang his dentist. In our last check up couple months ago, she had said she might need to refer him to orthodontist at age 12, but not now as teeth are still developing. However many sources cites braces could be worn at age 8 and it’s actually better if started early, so I wanted to check if she can refer him to an orthodontist now rather than later, but she said she can only refer us to private.

I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to get him checked, I don’t know the health system in the UK very well, could you please tell me if I should just go private or am I missing something?

Thanks!

In terms of waiting times and actual input for NHS speech therapy I would just go private for an initial assessment. Based on what they say you can the decide whether you need to go down the orthodontist route instead.
No idea why the GP is saying school have to make the referral? In my experience he’d be a low priority for the SENCO to make a referral so again you could be waiting a long time.
I have no experience on the orthodontist side of things regarding lisps

Except to say with dental work like braces it is very hard to get them on the NHS even for children so yes if that’s the route you’re thinking of I’d also start looking at private orthodontists.

You can self refer to speech therapy. Just give them a call.

thanks for the responses, when you say give them a call, who exactly I should call please?

If you google "SALT self referral " it should bring up details
Of how to do a self referral.

found the contact info for council’s children speech therapists, thanks you.

Don’t be afraid to harass/chase them up either. Most are notoriously slow and a pushy parent can really speed things up. Good luck!