The main purpose of a Speech Therapy Assessment is to determine if your child would benefit from therapy and if so what areas of communication are delayed. This will determine how many times a week would be optimal to attend sessions.
The Speech Therapist will ask you to complete a questionnaire with personal information. This will include questions about your child's birth and medical history, milestones and your family history. Be as detailed as possible as it provides valuable information that helps the therapist plan the testing for your child's evaluation. It also assists when determining referrals to other professionals, if need be.
The evaluation itself consists of tests and assessment tools focused on the following areas of communication: articulation, receptive and expressive vocabulary and language, auditory processing skills, spelling, reading and discourse. They will be geared towards your child's age whether they are pre-school, preparatory or older learners.
The therapist will use both quantitive scores and qualitative observations through play and conversation to evaluate the child's responses. This will provide a holistic picture of your child. They will talk to you and the child's teacher to get a well rounded view of your child.
A comprehensive report will be written taking into consideration that the results of the assessment indicate the child's performance on a specific day at a specific time. The generalization of the results needs to be done with caution, however they do reflect the intrinsic reliability of the tests themselves.
The Speech Therapist will recommend how often therapy is needed based on the areas of difficulty identified in the assessment. For most children this is once or twice a week, but in certain instances it can be more.
The purpose of the assessment is therefore to determine the starting point of therapy. Observing a child's strengths and weaknesses helps the therapist to know what goals to set for therapy. Goals can be tracked and measured according to progress and are dynamic.
The earlier you intervene the better!!! Follow your gut as a parent and listen to your child's teacher's recommendations as they are always in their best interests.
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