The speech pathology role as part of a multi-disciplinary team is crucial. Our perspective and knowledge is essential to understanding children where they are at. In the last few years children of Australia have been impacted by droughts, floods, bushfires and a pandemic (just to name a few). This all comes together to make one tricky diagnostic puzzle often intertwined with developmental trauma and complex psycho-social factors. We work collaboratively together with the child, their family and community including their local school and care team. Our multi-disciplinary teams aim is to understand the needs of this child, determine any appropriate diagnostic frameworks and be able to link them in with services locally or support transition back to their care team.

Providing trauma informed, high quality speech pathology assessments as part of a wider developmental assessment team is a crucial piece of the puzzle in understanding the children we work with. Currently, most of the available literature focuses on an adult population and/or within a medical model. We hope by sharing our experiences and insights we can provide an example of how speech pathologists can work within this structure.

Multiple case-studies will be presented to explore the role of the speech pathologist in the multi-disciplinary team. Including recommendations/goals with an importance in highlighting the child’s strengths. These cases will show how speech pathologists can add value and collaborate within the multi-disciplinary care team whilst working with children, their families and communities within this assessment process.

In conclusion, it is clear that speech pathologists hold a vital role as part of the developmental assessment team. We hope, that by sharing our knowledge and working experiences we can empower and advocate for speech pathologists in this space and in turn strive for better outcomes for children and their families.

D'Arcy, E., Evans, K., Afsharnejad, B., Milbourn, B., Bölte, S., & Girdler, S. (2023). Assessing functioning for individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions: Current clinical practice in Australia. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 70(1), 43-60.

Rutherford, M., Maciver, D., Johnston, L., Prior, S., & Forsyth, K. (2021). Development of a pathway for multidisciplinary neurodevelopmental assessment and diagnosis in children and young people. Children, 8(11), 1033.

Speech Pathology Australia (2016). Transdisciplinary Practice. Melbourne, Australia. The Speech Pathology Association of Australia Ltd. Retrieved 9 October, 2024. Available: https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/resource?resource=151

Taylor, L. J., Eapen, V., Maybery, M. T., Midford, S., Paynter, J., Quarmby, L., ... & Whitehouse, A. J. (2016). Diagnostic evaluation for autism spectrum disorder: a survey of health professionals in Australia. BMJ open, 6(9), e012517.