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Assessments

Assessments are an essential part of the speech and language therapy process, they allow the speech and language therapist to gather information about your child’s skills and the difficulties they are experiencing.

Our assessments can be carried out in a variety of settings including the child’s home or school as well as in one of our clinics.

Available paediatric speech and language therapy assessments

We provide a range of assessments, to assess the speech, language and communication needs of all children. Our speech and language therapist often use a combination of both formal and informal assessments. Some of the common assessments we offer include:

Assessment of Comprehension and Expression

This is a picture assessment to assess the understanding and use of language in children aged 6-11 years.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication assessment

An assessment will take place to assess a child’s mobility, language levels, social communication skills and motivation in order to decide which form of AAC (mode of alternative communication) is most appropriate for a child.

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule

This assessment is administered by multiple professionals and assesses a child's social communication, imagination and play. The results from this assessment will indicate whether a diagnosis of autism is appropriate.

Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals

This formal standardised picture based assessment assesses a child's understanding and use of language. It can provide useful information on the different aspects of language development.

Dysphagia assessment

An assessment will take place in order to identify any eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties in a child.

Expressive language assessment

There are many ways of assessing a child’s use of language. This can either be through a formal assessment or informally through play activities for younger children.

Multidisciplinary assessment

A multidisciplinary assessment is any assessment that involves more than one professional to draw conclusions from an assessment of a child with more complex difficulties.

New Reynell Developmental Language Scales

The New Reynell Developmental Language Scales helps identify any language understanding or expression difficulties in a child aged 3-7 years.

Observation

An observation of a child’s communication skills can provide useful information on the child’s communication and language in different environments and with different people.

Pre-school Language Scales

The pre-school language scales is a comprehensive assessment that identifies and comprehension and expression difficulties in children from pre-school. It uses a variety of colourful pictures and real objects.

Receptive language assessment

There are many ways of assessing a child’s understanding of language. This can either be through a formal assessment or informally through play activities for younger children.

Skype assessment

Some of our assessment options are available over Skype. This is useful for those who are unable to reach the clinic or school environment.

Social communication assessment

Different tools can be used to assess a child’s social communication skills with their peers and others.

South Tyneside Assessment of Phonology

This is a useful assessment that assesses a child’s speech sound in single words through a series of pictures. It helps the speech and language therapist to identify any difficulties a child may have in their production of speech.

South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure

This allows the speech and language therapist to identify children who may have difficulty in structuring their sentences.

Speech assessment

There are many different speech assessments available that assess the child’s ability to produce certain sounds in all word positions and in short phrases.

Stammering assessment

A stammering assessment will allow the speech and language therapist to identify the type of stammer a child has and the potential causes of the stammer. This will help the speech and language therapist to devise ways to reduce a child's stammer.

Test of Abstract Language Comprehension

This is a colourful assessment that allows the speech and language therapist to assess a child’s understanding of language that is not obvious and concrete. It assesses the child's ability to draw information from language to make prediction and assumptions.

Voice assessment

A voice assessment will allow a speech and language therapist to identify the nature of a child’s voice disorder and the potential causes of this.

We provide both formal and informal assessments at SLT for Kids. Formal assessments are those that provide information on how a child progresses overtime and where they compare to their average age group. They are also useful in identifying whether the child may have a delay or disorder in comparison to their age group. Formal assessments can be very informative as to what therapy or treatment programme can be carried out to benefit the child.

Informal assessments are devised by the speech therapist and are much more flexible than formal assessments as they can assess a child's speech, language and communication in different environments and in ways to suit them. For some children, informal assessments may benefit them as they are allowed the best opportunity to achieve what they are most able. They are very specific to your child but do not allow an objective view on where the child is in comparison to their peers.

An assessment appropriate to you will be chosen by our speech and language therapists based on your needs, goals and the child. All of our assessments are carried out by a qualified and experienced speech and language therapists.

The purpose of assessments in paediatric speech and language therapy

Speech and language therapist’s carry out assessments for many reasons, they include:

To identify the areas of need and their impact on daily activities.
To arrange concerns in order of priority.
To observe the impact of the child’s speech, language and communication skills in their natural day to day environments.
To observe children’s social interactions with others.
To profile the child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Our assessments are used to identify and evaluate how your child uses their speech, language and communication skills to understand and interact with the world around them. The results from the assessment alongside information gained from parents and teachers is used to create a therapy programme individual to the child and their needs.

Our process

Our speech and language therapists provide initial assessment of needs, therapy, reviews and discharge. Our process is tailored to each child and their needs.

What will a speech and language therapy assessment involve?

Speech and language therapy assessments vary according to what area of skills are being assessed. A speech assessment would involve the speech and language therapist assessing a child’s ability to produce a range of sounds, where as a receptive language assessment looks at a child’s ability to understand spoken language. Assessments can be carried out formally through the use of several structured activities, or informally through play. This would vary according to the child’s abilities, needs and attention skills.

Contact us

For more information about speech and language therapy assessments or if you would like to speak to one of our speech and language therapists then please email office@sltforkids.co.uk or call 0330 088 2298.

Assessments

Assessments

Available paediatric speech and language therapy assessments

Assessment of Comprehension and Expression

Augmentative and Alternative Communication assessment

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule

Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals

Dysphagia assessment

Expressive language assessment

Multidisciplinary assessment

New Reynell Developmental Language Scales

Observation

Pre-school Language Scales

Receptive language assessment

Skype assessment

Social communication assessment

South Tyneside Assessment of Phonology

South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure

Speech assessment

Stammering assessment

Test of Abstract Language Comprehension

Voice assessment

The purpose of assessments in paediatric speech and language therapy

Our process

What will a speech and language therapy assessment involve?

Contact us

Assessments

Speech Clinic

Voice Clinic

Feeding Clinic

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