Children with speech issues risk poor mental health, charity warns

A record two million children in the UK are experiencing issues with their speech and language, according to Speech and Language UK.

And one in five children and young people aged eight to 25 experienced a mental health problem in 2023, according to the NHS.

Speech and Language UK's chief executive Jane Harris says children who struggle with talking and understanding words are more likely to develop poor mental health.

"Everyone uses words to identify how they're feeling. If you're struggling with language, you can't say to yourself, 'I'm sad, I'm angry.' You can't categorise how you're feeling," she says.

"So if we've got more and more children who are struggling with language, we're going to end up with more and more children with mental health problems."

The charity wants better training in speech and language for teachers and school support staff, as well as mental health professionals, and better information sharing between schools and mental health teams to spot language issues in children at an early age.

In a joint report with the Centre for Mental Health, the authors call for schools and mental health teams to move away from a reliance on talking-based therapies, adding that solutions like art therapy could sometimes be more appropriate.

The government has committed to providing access to mental health support in every secondary school in England by 2030. Speech and Language UK says it's important those mental health teams in schools have mandatory training in spotting speech and language issues too.

"They need to spot when a child has both communication and mental health issues, but also they need to make sure that whatever mental health support they're giving them is actually adapted and is suitable for that child."

Speech and language is the most common form of support for children in England with special educational needs, according to the latest data.

For around one million young people across the UK, speech and language challenges can last a lifetime, due to conditions like cerebral palsy, autism, or hearing impairments. An estimated 800,000 of those have developmental language disorder, known as DLD, a condition where people have long-term challenges talking or understanding words.

Siouxsie, 19, has lived with DLD since she was a young child and finds it hard to put her ideas into words. She also has selective mutism, driven by anxiety.

She says she didn't get the right support as a child, which has impacted her ability to communicate as an adult.