Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy

We provide proven treatments and personalized care to help children improve communication skills.
Pediatric Speech Therapy

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Why choose UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals for speech-language pathology?

Children may experience speech, language, voice or swallowing difficulties for many reasons. Some conditions are congenital (present at birth), while others develop later in childhood.

At UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, our experienced speech-language pathologists (SLPs) provide comprehensive care and support for children with a wide range of communication and swallowing disorders. Our experts work with toddlers, preschoolers and school-age children using the latest diagnostic tools and treatments.

For children with hearing loss, UCSF offers comprehensive testing and treatment through our pediatric audiology program.

  • Comprehensive approach

    Your child has access to a full team of specialists, including SLPs, audiologists, otolaryngologists and physical and occupational therapists.

  • Multispecialty collaboration

    We partner with experts in complex conditions that cause speech challenges, including craniofacial anomalies, cerebral palsy and eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders (EGIDs).

  • Family-centered speech and language services

    Parents and caregivers receive education and practical strategies to help support their child's speech and language development at home.

  • Continuum of care

    We offer inpatient and outpatient speech therapy, allowing children to continue their rehabilitation after leaving the hospital.

Our areas of expertise in pediatric speech therapy

We provide individualized speech and language therapy based on each child's age, developmental stage and unique way of communicating. For children recovering from an illness or injury, our speech, language and cognitive therapy can help them successfully return to school, home and everyday activities. Treatment is fun and engaging, focused on helping kids build skills and confidence.

We provide speech therapy for children with:

  • Autism and neurodevelopmental disorders

  • Childhood apraxia of speech

  • Fluency disorders, such as stuttering and cluttering

  • Language delays and disorders

  • Language-based learning differences, including problems with reading, writing and spelling

  • Speech sound disorders, including articulation disorder

  • Swallowing disorders (dysphagia)

  • Thinking and communication difficulties after brain injury, stroke or brain tumor (aphasia)

Feeding and swallowing therapy to support healthy growth and development

Our speech-language pathologists specialize in evaluating and treating dysphagia in infants and children. We use advanced diagnostic tools to evaluate dysphagia, including modified barium swallow studies (MBSS). This exam uses real-time X-ray imaging, called video fluoroscopy, to see how your child's mouth, throat and esophagus work when they swallow.

During the test, a radiologist performs the imaging while your child's speech therapist assesses their swallowing. We use safety measures to minimize radiation exposure and keep your child safe.

Additional dysphagia services we offer include:

  • Breast- and bottle-feeding support for infants

  • Help starting solid foods

  • Assistance transitioning from tube feeding to oral feeding

  • Swallowing therapy to help children eat and drink safely and meet their nutritional needs

Locations (dynamic)

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    Providers (dynamic)

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    Providers (manual)

    Awards & achievements

    Recognized nationally for excellence, we pair world-class medical expertise with compassionate care to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients.
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    • U.S. News & World Report Best Children's Hospitals 2026-2027, ranked in 11 specialties

      Ranked among the nation's best in 11 specialties

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    Related conditions & treatments

    • Conditions
      • Aphasia
      • Apraxia
      • Autism
      • Childhood Onset Fluency Disorder
      • Developmental Disorder of Speech and Language
      • Dysphagia
      • Speech Delay
      • Speech Disorder
    • Treatments
      • Barium Swallow Test
      • Feeding Tube Management
      • Speech Therapy
      • Swallow Therapy
      • Swallow Xray
      • Swallowing Evaluation

    Speech therapy for adults

    Young adults with chronic conditions that require ongoing speech therapy can transition seamlessly to our adult program when the time is right.
    Adult speech-language pathology

    Authoring Notes

    Preprod-only checklist. Remove this component before promoting to prod.

    Content source URLs (1)

    Warnings (1)

    • Care keyword 'Speech-language pathologist' not found under /sitecore/content/UCSFWEB/Shared/Base/Data/Clinical Tag Library/Clinical Keywords — add an entry to clinical_keyword_aliases.json if the Sitecore item is named differently.

    Word doc notes (7)

    Lauren Lamb · 2025-08-19T12:24:00Z
    Anchored to: “Meta and tags”

    Primary keyword: Pediatric speech therapy

    Secondary keywords: Speech-language pathologist, swallowing therapy, dysphagia, barium swallow study, speech language therapy

    Emily Quinlan · 2026-06-01T08:51:00Z
    Anchored to: “Yes”

    UCSF: Interviewed Tuan Mai and Soheila Marefat on 1/20/2026.

    Emily Quinlan · 2026-08-18T09:34:00Z
    Anchored to: “Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy”

    UCSF: Source info note from Emily 8/17/26:

    The SMEs provided some copy they had written and never submitted to the web team (attached by Emily in Basecamp for reference). They asked us to use this copy in the page updates.

    -----

    Per Jenny 6/3/26: Keep as a dedicated service page; details below:

    "Here's our plan for what services pages we should have pertaining to the above:

    Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine & Therapy

    Source: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/care/rehabilitation-and-physical-therapy

    Top-level service page that doesn't show locations, just provides an overview and links to related services. These will include all of the services mentioned below.

    Copy should capture that we offer a full range of pediatric rehabilitation services and that the care team may include physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians (physiatrists), physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, social workers, child life specialists, etc.

    Pediatric Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

    Source: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/clinics/physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation-clinic

    Should be rewritten to sound less like the top-level Pediatric Rehabilitation & Therapy page. (Right now the content on the https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/clinics/physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation-clinic and https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/care/rehabilitation-and-physical-therapy legacy pages contains a lot of overlap.) This Pediatric Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation page should focus much more on the specific type of care that the PM&R (aka physiatrists) provide.

    Pediatric Inpatient Rehabilitation

    Source: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/programs/inpatient-rehabilitation-program

    Service page can talk about both Oakland and Mission Bay, but should focus on the acute rehab unit (ARU) in Oakland, which patients can be formally admitted/referred to.

    Any info very specific to the Oakland ARU and that location/facility that we feel shouldn't be on the service page can go on the location page instead.

    The legacy page is in the process of being updated now. Not sure when the changes will go live, but AMG should wait until the page is updated before pulling from it for the new service page. Details are in this UCSF ticket: https://ucsfhealthweb.atlassian.net/browse/UWCR-15721.

    Pediatric Physical Therapy

    Source: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/clinics/physical-therapy-clinic

    Pediatric Occupational Therapy

    Source: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/clinics/occupational-therapy-clinic

    Pediatric Speech Therapy

    Source: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/clinics/speech-therapy-clinic

    As for the other URL mentioned above: The PAPR program (https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/clinics/pediatric-amplified-pain-rehabilitation-papr-inpatient-program) is another thing and even though it has the word "rehabilitation" in it, we think it should be rolled into the Pediatric Pain & Palliative Care service page. The legacy page says PAPR is "an intensive program in the hospital for children with severe amplified pain syndrome." So it sounds like inpatient care that can just be mentioned in the context of our pain services."

    ----

    Jenny to answer IA questions 5/26/26:

    K: integratie into main rehab page with all types of therapies (PT, OT, speech, etc)

    Emily Quinlan · 2026-08-18T09:35:00Z
    Anchored to: “<h2>Our areas of expertise in pediatric speech therapy</h2>”

    UCSF: The content that follows was sourced from a document provided by the SMEs.

    Terrigno, Kelly · 2026-08-27T11:07:00Z
    Anchored to: “Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy | UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals”

    Other top children’s hospitals name this Speech-Language Pathology (Stanford, CHOP, Cincinnati Children’s), Speech-Language Therapy (Colorado) or Speech, Language and Learning Clinic (Texas Children’s). Should we at least include “language” in the title as a formality?

    Emily Quinlan · 2026-09-09T11:08:00Z
    Anchored to: “Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy | UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals”

    Tim: The title in the CDP is “Pediatric Speech Therapy”, but we think it’s fine to call the page “Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy.” That term still has very high search volume and more accurately describes the breadth of services. Please confirm with Jenny.

    McGrath, Timothy · 2026-10-22T15:14:00Z
    Anchored to: “Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy | UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals”

    Jenny approved. Could you update the CDP?

    Lauren Lamb · 2026-10-23T11:12:00Z
    Anchored to: “Pediatric Speech & Language Therapy | UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals”

    Todd advised the CDP will update itself

    Terrigno, Kelly · 2026-08-27T11:15:00Z
    Anchored to: “Thinking and communication difficulties after brain injury”

    I think this should be aphasia which covers other areas in addition to TBI (stroke, brain tumor, etc). Can we confirm with the SME?

    Katie Riley · 2026-09-10T09:54:00Z
    Anchored to: “Thinking and communication difficulties after brain injury”

    Dr. Mai, please confirm.

    Lauren Lamb · 2026-10-05T09:40:00Z
    Anchored to: “Thinking and communication difficulties after brain injury”

    Dr. Mai’s feedback was simply, “Speech Therapy is good as is.” so leaving content as shown.

    Terrigno, Kelly · 2026-08-27T11:21:00Z
    Anchored to: “We provide speech therapy for children with:”

    We should also highlight our collaboration with specialized teams for conditions that can cause speech issues, i.e. craniofacial center, hearing loss, EGID program, cerebral palsy, etc. This is a differentiator that we can also highlight at the top.

    Emily Quinlan · 2026-09-09T11:41:00Z
    Anchored to: “We provide speech therapy for children with:”

    We felt that would fit better in the WCU section, so incorporated it further up.