Preschool Speech and Infant Hearing

We offer a wide range of services to help you and your family to develop and maintain healthy speech and hearing through the early stages of life.

Northwestern Health Unit is the lead agency for the Ontario Infant Hearing Program in the Kenora Rainy River District. This program provides services with funding from the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS) at no additional cost to families.

Les clients préférant un service offert en français peuvent y faire demande en composant le 807-934-2236.

What we do

Some of Northwestern Health Unit’s (NWHU) speech and hearing services include:

Preschool speech and language assessments and interventions
Infant Hearing Program

Preschool speech and language assessments and interventions

We offer speech and language assessments and interventions for children from birth until the time they enter senior kindergarten. About one in every 10 children needs help to develop speech and language skills. Early identification and intervention are important so children can enter school ready to learn. 

Speech and language assessments determine the child’s speech and language strengths and needs and then identify goals and strategies to support the development of communication skills. A Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), who is registered with the College of Audiologists & Speech-Language Pathologists of Ontario (CALSPO), will complete the assessment, typically at your local health unit office. Assessments are approximately one hour and you will stay with your child. The SLP will play and talk with your child while listening to their speech sounds, sentence productions, grammar, vocabulary, and review how your child asks and answer questions and follow directions.

After the session, the SLP will discuss their findings with you and make some recommendations. If you both feel that therapy is needed, an appointment schedule will be made for you. Services may be provided at your local health unit office, children’s centre or other locations like daycares, nursery schools, or head start programs. The SLP may give suggestions for some things to work on at home that will help your child develop their speech, language or literacy skills.

Referrals for assessment can be made by completing and submitting our online referral form or by calling the North Words central intake line at 1-877-553-7122.

Infant Hearing Program

We screen all babies born in our catchment area for hearing loss. Screens are quick, simple, and safe for your baby. It is important to find out if your baby has hearing loss. Undetected loss can cause delays in your baby’s speech and language development. This can lead to behavioural or emotional problems, or later, to difficulties in school. The sooner that someone identifies the better. This ensures children get access to the services and supports needed as soon as possible.

The hospital will offer you a hearing screen before you and your baby go home. If your baby does not receive a hearing screen in the hospital, we will contact you to come to a community clinic.

Additional infant hearing services include:

Audiology services for children 0 to 6 identified with permanent hearing loss or who are at risk for hearing loss
Monitoring of children at risk of developing a hearing loss
Language development services

Referrals for the Infant Hearing program can be made by completing and submitting our online referral form or by calling the North Words central intake line at 1-877-553-7122.

For additional information about these services, visit Ontario’s Infant Hearing Program website or the Newborn Screening Ontario website.