Assessment
Your child’s or your overall speech and language skills will be assessed using a combination of parent/client interview, play-based informal assessment and formal standardized testing. The duration of an assessment (interview, informal and formal testing) varies according to age, history of previous assessments, the severity of the speech/language deficit, as well as the collaboration and attention of the person. A screening lasts approximately one hour to determine the need for formal testing.
During the initial parent or client interview, client/parent, physician, and teacher concerns will be discussed. Additionally, we will examine medical history, developmental milestones, language acquisition (bilingual clients), educational history and family history.
During the informal assessment portion, we use a variety of toys, books or videos to elicit a spontaneous speech and language sample. Then we transcribe and analyze the spontaneous sample to determine if there are any speech and/or language anomalies. For instance, we analyze a child’s language sample to determine if their language consists of all the age-appropriate morphemes. We also take a narrative language sample to informally analyze higher level language skills (e.g. sequencing, reasoning, perspective taking) according to age.
A formal assessment can be conducted for speech, language, voice, fluency and swallowing. The most common types of assessments are for speech and language. Here is a brief description of what we examine during a speech or language assessment: