Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals

The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF) is a comprehensive assessment that can be used to assess all aspects of a child’s communication, including receptive language, expressive language, phonological awareness and pragmatic skills. It is used by speech and language therapists to identify the strengths and weaknesses in a child’s communication skills. This assessment can be used with children aged 5+.

Speech and language therapy can help children improve their language, speech and communication skills through different exercises, strategies, as well as provide advice to parents and teachers on how best facilitate and improve children’s language and communication skills. Our speech and language therapists will use the information from the assessment to create a therapy programme that works on increasing and improving the highlighted difficulties your child is experiencing with their language, speech and communication.

• Identifies language disorders or delay in both expressive and receptive language.
• Identifies how the disorder is impacting the child’s classroom abilities.
• Identifies what critical skills are underlying the language disorder.

The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals can be used by speech and language therapists to assess your child’s language skills to identify a suspected language disorder and determine what specific skills your child is struggling with. The information from the assessment can be used to create a therapy plan that works on improving your child’s language skills.

Find out more…

• What will the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals assess?
• Why is a Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals needed?
• Typical conditions that require a Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals
• What information will I receive following a Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals?
• Treatment following a Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals
• Summary

The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals assesses children’s language skills. It can help speech and language therapists determine if your child has a language disorder or delay and what aspects of language are impacted. The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals has a core language test made up of the following subtests:

• Concepts and following directions
• Word structure
• Recalling sentences
• Formulated sentences

These subtest let the speech and language therapist identify if your child is presenting with a language delay or disorder as well as identifying the type of language disorder / delay present. The information gained from the core language test can be used by the speech and language therapist to select subtests to identify the nature of the disorder and the skills your child is struggling with. The subtests include:

• Word classes
• Sentence structure
• Expressive vocabulary
• Word definitions
• Understanding spoken paragraphs
• Sentence assembly
• Semantic relationships
• Word associations
• Phonological awareness
• Pragmatics profile

The information received from these subtest allow the speech and language therapist to create a therapy programme that works on improving your child’s highlighted difficulties.

Children who struggle with language can often find many aspects of both their home and school life difficult. This can be from following instructions at home to keeping up with their academic learning in school and developing friendships. Each of those aspects are dependent on the child being able to understand what is being said and being able to express themselves in an effective and understandable manner. If children struggle with these skills a problem can arise, such as the child falling behind in their academic learning and difficulty forming friendships, as they can’t follow the instructions for games or express their ideas and thoughts in a manner that can be understood by others. The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals can assess whether your child has a language delay or disorder as well as identifying the nature of the disorder and the skills your child is struggling with. The information from the assessment can be used to identify any difficulties the child has understanding language in the classroom.

Below are some of the common conditions the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals is used for:

• Aphasia
• Autism spectrum disorder
• High-functioning autism
• Developmental delay
• Developmental verbal dyspraxia
• Learning disability
• Specific language impairment
• Stroke

Our speech and language therapists help all children with language difficulties, including children who have been diagnosed with a certain difficulty or condition as well as those children who are not yet diagnosed or identified with a particular condition. Our speech and language therapists work with you and your child to create a therapy programme that improves your child’s difficulties and incorporates their motivators and goals.

After your child has completed the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals the speech and language therapist will provide you with a summary of the information found through the assessment. After the assessment you can request a detailed report about the information gained from the assessment. The report will also include details on how your child’s difficulty with language is impacting their communication and daily activities. Our speech and language therapists will provide recommendations on how to best communicate with your child as well as how to improve their language skills through a therapy programme in the report.

Some of the available speech and language therapy is listed below:

• Receptive language therapy
• Expressive language therapy
• Speech therapy
• Social communication therapy
• Language group
• Social communication group
• Advice, training and strategies for parents, carers and teachers

We offer a wide range of treatments, if you feel that your child could benefit from a certain therapy programme contact our speech and language therapist for more details. Email office@sltforkids.co.uk or call us on 0330 088 2298.

The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals is used by the speech and language therapist to comprehensively assess a child’s language skills and identify a language delay or disorder.

Our speech and language therapists will assess your child’s language abilities and identify where their difficulties lie. The information gained from the assessment will be used by our speech and language therapists to create an individualised therapy programme that improves your child’s language skills. If you would like more information on the assessment please email office@sltforkids.co.uk or call on 0330 088 2298.