The five names, and which ones Singapore actually defines
Two of the five have a legal definition in Singapore. It sits in the Second Schedule of the Allied Health Professions Act 2011, which is the law that decides who may do this work here, and the Allied Health Professions Council publishes it in full. The other three do not have one, and this page says so rather than borrowing a definition from a centre that sells it.
- Speech Therapy (ST), also called speech-and-language therapy
- The law defines it as the assessment, diagnosis and management of communication and swallowing difficulties. Communication here is broad on purpose: spoken, written, pictorial and signed language, plus hearing, understanding, articulation, fluency, voice, and non-verbal and social skills. Feeding and swallowing sit in the same profession.
- Occupational Therapy (OT)
- The law defines it around everyday activities: self-care, school, play, leisure. An occupational therapist works on the things a person does in a day and on the environment they do them in, including changes to a home or a classroom. Screening infants and children for developmental delay using sensorimotor and neurobehavioural tests is written into the profession’s own scope. If the sensory side is what you are dealing with at home, our guide to sensory strategies for daily life is the practical companion to this.
- Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
- Not a separate therapy in Singapore law. AAC systems are named inside the speech-language therapist’s own scope of practice: giving an expert opinion on them, choosing one, and training the person and family to use it. So in Singapore, AAC usually arrives through a speech therapist rather than from a separate specialist. We have a full guide to helping a non-speaking autistic child communicate.
- Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention (EIBI), usually called ABA
- Singapore has no legal definition of it. The closest official language is the Ministry of Health’s, which files it under “educational and behavioural therapy services” and groups the people who provide it with psychologists rather than with allied health professionals (MOH, January 2024). What ABA involves at any particular centre is that centre’s own description, and you have to read it there.
- DIR/Floortime
- Singapore has no official definition of this either. Floortime is a strategy inside the DIR model rather than a therapy standing on its own, so a provider that presents them as two separate services is worth a question. Ask the centre to write down what a session looks like, how long the programme runs, and who supervises the staff.
Who is legally allowed to deliver each one
This one has a clean answer, and it is worth knowing before you pay anybody.
The Allied Health Professions Act 2011 registers five professions: diagnostic radiographers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiation therapists and speech-language therapists. Every one of them must be registered with the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC), the government body that keeps those registers, and hold a valid Practising Certificate before they can work in that profession in Singapore. AHPC states the consequence in one sentence: “It is an offence to practise as an Allied Health Professional in Singapore without registration and a valid Practising Certificate.” That page was last updated in April 2025.
So for two of your five names, speech therapy and occupational therapy, there is a public list you can check before you pay anybody. AHPC runs a search for registered allied health professionals on its own site.
- Ask the centre for the therapist’s full name as it appears on their registration, and which of the two professions they are registered in.
- Open the AHPC search for registered allied health professionals from the Council’s website.
- Search the name, and check that the profession matches what you were told and that the registration is current.
- If the person turns out not to be a registered occupational therapist or speech-language therapist, that is not automatically a problem. It means the register does not cover them, so ask a different question instead: what qualification do they hold, and who supervises their work.
ABA is where step four usually lands. The Ministry of Health was asked in Parliament in January 2024 whether providers of educational and behavioural therapy should be registered under the same Act. Its written answer restated the five registered professions, then said that people providing behavioural therapy services are grouped with psychologists, and that in healthcare settings they sit under the clinical governance of the institution and under the Healthcare Services Act.
For early intervention, the answer is more specific: “In non-healthcare settings such as MSF-funded early intervention programmes, operators may employ therapists, psychologists and other professionals to provide therapy services. Where necessary, the funding agreements specify the minimum qualifications and training required, before staff can be deployed to provide such services.” MOH closed by saying it would keep assessing whether more professions need to be registered.
Which of the five your child actually gets through EIPIC
This is the practical question, and EIPIC is where it gets answered. The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA), which runs it, describes EIPIC as supporting children who need medium to high levels of early intervention support, from birth to six, for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents. Your child has to be assessed and recommended by a medical professional to get in, and SG Enable adds who may make that referral: “Only KKH, NUH, SGH and private paediatricians can refer children to EIPIC.” If you are not at that point yet, start with our guide to getting an autism diagnosis in Singapore.
SG Enable describes what happens inside EIPIC in one line: “Sessions may include therapy services such as speech, occupational and physio therapy”, at 5 to 12 hours a week depending on the child’s need. Its 17-page Guide to EIPIC, last updated 1 September 2026, goes further and lists the professional staff at each of the 10 operators that run those centres, one operator at a time. The roles that appear are speech therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, social workers and caregiver training. Hydrotherapy is offered at two centres, and one operator lists assistive technology.
The words ABA, Applied Behaviour Analysis, Floortime and DIR do not appear once in that guide, nor on ECDA’s EIPIC page, nor on SG Enable’s EIPIC, EIPIC-P or Therapy and Intervention pages, as those documents stood in September 2026. That is not a judgement on ABA. It is the plain state of Singapore’s public early intervention paperwork, and it tells you where the money goes.
| On a Singapore register? | Named in EIPIC’s own documents? | How it is paid for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speech Therapy | Yes. Speech-language therapist, registered with AHPC, Practising Certificate required | Yes. Named as a therapy service in sessions, and speech therapists are listed on operator staff rosters | Inside the EIPIC monthly fee, or privately |
| Occupational Therapy | Yes. Occupational therapist, registered with AHPC, Practising Certificate required | Yes. Named as a therapy service in sessions, and occupational therapists are listed on operator staff rosters | Inside the EIPIC monthly fee, or privately |
| AAC | Not a profession. Written into the speech-language therapist’s scope of practice | Not named as AAC. It would arrive through the centre’s speech therapist | The therapist’s time sits inside the EIPIC fee. None of these sources prices the device or the system itself |
| ABA / EIBI | No. MOH groups behavioural therapy providers with psychologists, outside the Act’s five professions | Not named | Privately, unless a particular centre includes it in its own programme |
| DIR/Floortime | No | Not named | Privately |
One more thing about that staff list is worth knowing before you go in with a preference. The Guide to EIPIC heads every operator’s roster “professional staff / services on needs basis”, and says the intervention schedule is decided by the centre after assessment. You are not ordering from a menu. The centre assesses your child and puts together the mix, which is why two children at the same centre can have very different weeks.
What it costs, and the number nobody publishes
Inside EIPIC, the therapies are not priced one by one. There is a single monthly fee and the mix of therapy sits inside it. ECDA states it plainly: “Out-of-Pocket Fees for Singapore Citizen children range from $5 to $430, depending on monthly household per capita income” (as of April 2026, the date ECDA last updated that page).
Household per capita income is your household’s total monthly income divided by everyone living in it, children counted, so two families on the same salary can land in different places.
That band is not a guess about your family, it is the two ends of a published ladder. SG Enable compiles a fee matrix with eight income tiers, centre by centre, and for Permanent Resident households it publishes a separate one. Our guide to what private early intervention costs in Singapore works through those tiers properly, and this page does not repeat them.
Two things from that matrix are worth carrying here: GST applies at some operators and not at others, and Baby Bonus may be used to offset EIPIC fees for Singaporean children. Ask about both.
Outside EIPIC the honest answer is harder, and this is the gap this page will not paper over. No Singapore government body publishes a per-session price for private speech therapy, occupational therapy or ABA. Not ECDA, not MSF, not SG Enable, not MOH, not the Allied Health Professions Council.
The only Singapore figures we can point to belong to one family, below. Private centres publish their own prices on their own pages, which is where you have to go, and you should expect the figure you are quoted to be the centre’s rather than a rate anyone oversees.
The one dated Singapore figure we can attribute belongs to a single family, and it should be read as exactly that. In a Straits Times report published on 17 March 2024, one couple who gave up on the EIPIC wait described paying about S$300 a session for an educational therapist who came to their child’s childcare four times a month, plus S$230 a session each for a private occupational therapist and a private speech therapist, once a month each. Their total came to more than S$1,600 a month.
That is one family in 2024, not an average, and nobody publishes the average.
The wait: an average, and the number that matters more
The average wait to enrol in EIPIC is 5.5 months. That figure is from the Ministry of Social and Family Development, answering a parliamentary question on 7 July 2026: the wait “has improved from 7.5 months in 2023 to 5.5 months in 2025”, and the number of EIPIC places rose by around 25 per cent over the same period, from roughly 5,800 to 7,300.
| Year | Average wait to enrol |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 7.6 months |
| 2023 | 7.5 months |
| 2025 | 5.5 months |
The average is real, and it is also not your wait. The number that decides your months is which centre your referral lands at. SG Enable’s Guide to EIPIC publishes an estimated wait time for every funded centre, and as of 1 September 2026 the spread across them runs from about one month to eighteen.
AWWA at Kim Keat and the Autism Resource Centre at Bishan were showing one to three months, and Eden Children’s Centre at Clementi one to two. Thye Hua Kwan at Woodlands was showing 12 to 18 months, and Thye Hua Kwan at Pioneer 12 to 15. The guide adds its own caution in a footnote, and it is a fair one: each estimate “is as reported by centre and is subject to changes without prior notice”.
That is the single most useful thing on this page, so here is what to do with it. Before you accept a placement, ask SG Enable what the current estimated wait is at the centre you are being referred to, and whether another funded centre you can reach has a shorter one. Our list of every EIPIC operator and centre in Singapore is the map for that conversation.
What you can do while you wait
The waiting months are not empty by design, and this is the part families most often do not know. MSF’s own answer says support starts earlier than enrolment: “Under the EIPIC framework, operators support children with developmental needs and their families from the point of referral, not just upon enrolment.” In practice that means two things you can ask for by name.
The first is caregiver training. MSF describes operators “providing caregivers with appropriate training so that they are equipped with the skills and knowledge to support their children at home”.
The second is your child’s preschool. Where a child is already in one, MSF says EIPIC operators “work closely with the child’s educators and share appropriate strategies, subject to parental consent”. That consent is yours to give, and nothing happens until you do.
There is also a programme built for exactly this gap. SG Enable and CaringSG, a caregiver-led organisation, run Step One, which MSF describes as equipping caregivers of children with developmental needs with knowledge and skills and connecting them with support networks. Ask your SG Enable case officer about it at referral rather than at enrolment.
Which therapy should your child start with
The honest answer is that you do not pick it. ECDA requires that your child “must be assessed and recommended by a medical professional for suitability to enrol in EIPIC”, and SG Enable’s guide says the intervention schedule is determined by the centre after assessment, based on suitable vacancies. The therapy mix follows your child’s assessed needs and the centre’s own staffing. A parent who walks in asking for speech therapy specifically is not doing anything wrong, and will still be assessed the same way.
Can a child have more than one at a time? Inside EIPIC, that is the normal arrangement. The programme runs 5 to 12 hours a week and the centre roster covers several professions, so a child may see a speech therapist and an occupational therapist in the same week.
Across programmes it is different: one of ECDA’s own admission criteria is that the child is “not concurrently enrolled in any other MSF-funded EI programmes”, which rules out being in two government-funded programmes at once. That criterion names MSF-funded programmes, so if you are considering private sessions alongside a funded place, ask your centre and your SG Enable officer directly rather than assuming either way. If you are still deciding which government tier fits at all, we compare them on EIPIC, DS-Plus and DS-LS side by side.
What you do get real control over is which centre. SG Enable’s guide names four things to weigh when you choose one, and none of them is the therapy list.
- The estimated wait time, measured from the SG Enable referral to enrolment.
- Whether an adult caregiver has to sit in. The guide says that based on the operator’s assessment, an adult caregiver may be required to be in the session, and at some autism-focused centres it is set out as compulsory. For a household with two working parents this is the factor that decides everything else.
- Location: home now or after a move, your child’s childcare or preschool, and your own workplace.
- Transport. Some operators run an optional service, subject to charges and availability, and many do not.
Common questions
Does my child need an autism diagnosis before EIPIC will take them?
No diagnosis is named in the criteria. ECDA’s admission rule is that the child has been “assessed by a paediatrician to be at risk of a developmental, intellectual, sensory or physical disability, or a combination of disabilities”. At risk is enough. The child also has to be from birth to six years old and a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident.
Is ABA covered by a Singapore subsidy?
Not by name, for the reason set out above. What MOH says is that operators of MSF-funded early intervention programmes may employ therapists, psychologists and other professionals, with minimum qualifications set in their funding agreements. So the only way to find out is to ask your own centre whether anything of that kind is inside your child’s funded plan.
Our therapist is not on the AHPC register. Should I be worried?
Not automatically. The register covers five professions only: diagnostic radiographers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiation therapists and speech-language therapists. An educational therapist, a behavioural therapist or a psychologist will not appear on it because the Act does not cover them, not because something is wrong. What does matter is if someone describes themselves as an occupational therapist or a speech-language therapist and is not on it, because practising in those two without registration and a valid Practising Certificate is an offence.
Is speech therapy the same thing as speech-and-language therapy?
Yes. Singapore law calls the practice Speech-and-Language Therapy and registers the professional as a Speech-Language Therapist. Centres and parents mostly say speech therapy. If a centre uses one term and the register uses the other, nothing is different underneath.
What does EIPIC cost for a Permanent Resident child?
ECDA’s stated range of S$5 to S$430 a month is for Singapore Citizen children only. SG Enable publishes a separate fee matrix for Permanent Resident households, and your own figure depends on your household income per person and on the centre. Ask the centre at intake.
Can Baby Bonus pay for therapy?
It can go towards EIPIC fees. SG Enable’s fee matrix states that Baby Bonus may be used to offset EIPIC fees, for Singaporeans only. Check that with the Baby Bonus scheme itself before you plan around it.
What to do next
Have one conversation and ask two things in it. At your child’s next appointment with the early intervention centre or the paediatrician, ask which of these therapies is already inside your child’s funded plan, and what the subsidised route to the rest of them is. Then, before you pay any private therapist who calls themselves an occupational therapist or a speech-language therapist, look them up on the Allied Health Professions Council register. It takes a minute and it is the one check Singapore actually gives you.
When the money question is the next one, our guide to what private early intervention costs in Singapore picks up where this page stops, with the fee tiers worked through properly.
Sources
- Allied Health Professions Council, Registers of Allied Health Professionals, last updated 7 April 2025. The five registered professions, the Practising Certificate rule, the offence, and the Second Schedule descriptions of Occupational Therapy and Speech-and-Language Therapy including AAC.
- Ministry of Health, Regulation of Educational and Behavioural Therapy Service Providers, Parliamentary written answer, 9 January 2024. Where behavioural therapy sits, and how funded early intervention operators set staff qualifications.
- ECDA, Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC), last updated 21 April 2026. The admission criteria and the S$5 to S$430 fee range.
- SG Enable, A Guide to the Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC) (PDF), last updated 1 September 2026. The per-centre estimated wait times, the professional staff rosters, the caregiver presence rule and the four factors for choosing a centre.
- SG Enable, Therapy and Intervention (Enabling Guide). What EIPIC sessions may include, the 5 to 12 weekly hours, and who may refer a child.
- SG Enable, Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children – P (EIPIC-P), last updated 6 May 2026. The referral suspension and its dates.
- MSF, Changes to Average Wait Time for EIPIC Placements and Interim Support for Families Awaiting Placement, published 7 July 2026. The 7.5 to 5.5 month average, the places, and the support available from the point of referral.
- SG Enable, EI Fee Matrix for Singapore Citizens (PDF), last updated 7 August 2026. The eight income tiers, the GST note and the Baby Bonus note.
- National Institute of Education (NTU), republishing The Straits Times, Long wait for subsidised support pushes parents of kids with developmental needs to private sector, 17 March 2024. The one family’s private therapy costs, and the 2022 and 2023 average waits.