Tip-toe into any pre-school playgroup, Montessori or creche in the State, and there may be at least one candidate: a child who has difficulty articulating words, or can't chat away as confidently as his or her peers. Yet such is the fear among parents about it that speech therapy is low on the nation's agenda.
Much of that fear is based on lack of information, even misinformation. "Parents are afraid of the implications - there is a false perception that this means there is something permanently wrong with their child," says therapist Karen O'Connor. "Yet, with early intervention, a child's speech difficulties can be addressed very rapidly."
Ms O'Connor is one of a few therapists in Galway and her busy schedule includes working with Enable Ireland and the Rahoon Family Centre. Once a week, she spends a morning in the family centre in the Droim Chaoin housing estate, built for former local authority residents of the now-demolished Rahoon flats.
The pre-school playgroup owes it origins to work carried out by the Little Sisters of the Assumption with the Rahoon community. During the re-establishment of a family centre in Droim Chaoin - in a brightly painted two-storey house provided by Galway Corporation - it was realised that about 80 per cent of the children participating would benefit greatly from speech and language therapy.
It was a sensitive issue at first. The family centre liaised with the Western Health Board, which provides a service and a clinic at Shantalla, but it emerged that many parents who had acted on an identified problem had not kept up their child's appointments.
The centre decided to employ a professional and offer the option of therapy in the play group. The response was very positive. "Perhaps both parents and children felt far more comfortable in a small group and a familiar environment," the centre's project manager says.
Ms O'Connor has been with the Rahoon centre since May 1999, thanks to the support of private benefactors and core financial backing from Galway City Vocational Education Committee, the Little Sisters of the Assumption, and Galway Corporation. Western Health Board therapists offered advice and materials, but their resources are limited. The centre is seeking more permanent funding from the health board, on the basis the initiative could provide a national model.
Ms O'Connor hasn't come across anything like this project elsewhere in the State. "There are very few speech therapists anyway, with training only provided in Jordanstown and in Trinity College Dublin. But targeting children before they are 10 is essential, even though we can assist teenagers, and very successfully."
A combination of factors can contribute to speech and language difficulties, but the cause may be as simple as repeated ear infections. Therapeutic listening is one of the techniques in place. This uses sound stimulation, provided by music on electronically altered compact discs played through headphones, to help children overcome difficulties with movement, auditory perception, language and learning.
Music and play form the core of Ms O'Connor's class plan. She ran workshops in the beginning for parents, and they are encouraged to become involved throughout. Barbara Sherlock, a mother of four, has noticed a dramatic change in her four-year-old. Her daughter, Rebecca, now comes home singing songs and reciting nursery rhymes. "She loves coming here," she says. "It is only when you see your own child making progress that you really realise what can be done."