South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure

The South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure (STASS) is a quick assessment of children’s expressive language skills at different levels. It is used by the speech and language therapist to establish your child’s use of different sentences. The assessment can be used on children aged 3-7 years.

Speech and language therapists can help children use a range of sentence types that are grammatically correct, in the right order and make sense to the listener. Our speech and language therapist will use information from the assessment to create a therapy programme that is individual to your child’s difficulties with expressive language.

• Can be used to identify difficulties at multiple levels.
• Can help identify expressive language delay or disorder.
• Quick assessment lasting 15 mins.

The South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure will help speech and language therapists assess your child’s expressive language at clause, phrase and word level. This will help the speech and language therapist determine what aspect of expressive language your child is struggling with. The information from the assessment analysis will help the speech and language therapist create a therapy programme that targets those specific difficulties.

Find out more…

• What will the South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure assess?
• Why is the South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure needed?
• Typical conditions that require the South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure
• What information will I receive following the South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure?
• Treatment following a South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure
• Summary

The South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure assesses children’s expressive language skills. It specifically looks at children sentence skills and analyses them at clause, phrase and word level. At clause and phrase level the assessment will look at what type of words your child uses in a sentence or utterance and if they are in the right order. At word level the assessment will look at if your child uses word endings such as -ing, or the use of ‘s’ to show plurals.

Some children who have expressive language difficulties struggle with their sentence skills, they may leave words out, say the words in the wrong order or just use a few simple sentences. If children leave words out or speak in sentences that have the words in the wrong order, those who are listening to the child may find it difficult to follow or understand what they are saying. If children are only using short simple sentences it may become difficult for them to express their thoughts fully. Difficulties with sentence structure can also impact the academic achievement. Difficulties at a word level, such as not using plurals or using the wrong word endings, can cause confusion in others when children are talking or trying to explain themselves. Difficulties with expressive language can cause children to become frustrated especially if they are unaware of why others cannot understand or follow what they are trying to say.

The South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure helps to establish:

• Children’s use of different sentences, clauses and phrases.
• Children’s use of word endings.
• Any difficulties with syntactic structure and morphology.
• If difficulties are a expressive language delay or disorder.
• The impact these difficulties may have on everyday communication skills.

The information gained from the assessment can help the speech and language therapist create a therapy programme that targets your child’s difficulties. Speech and language therapy can help children use the correct word order in sentences, expand their use of different types of sentences and help children learn and use different word endings. Speech and language therapy aims in increasing children’s expressive language skills as well as their overall communication skills.

Below are some of the common conditions the South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure is used for:

• Autism spectrum disorder
• Acquired head / brain injury
• Developmental delay
• Developmental verbal dyspraxia
• Down's syndrome
• Learning disability
• Stroke

Our speech and language therapist can help all children with various needs, difficulties and conditions, including children who have not received a diagnosis or identified with a specific condition. The South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure will help to identify any difficulties children have with the use of sentence structures and certain word formations. The assessment will also help to establish the impact of these difficulties on your child’s communication skills. Our speech and language therapists aim to provide a therapy programme that is specific to your child’s difficulties, while incorporating their motivators and goals.

Following the South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure our speech and language therapists can provide you with a summary of the assessment and a quick analysis of your child’s sentence and word use. After an assessment you can request a detailed report about the information that was gained from the assessment. The report will explain how the difficulties are impacting your child’s communication skills as well as their day to day activities. The speech and language therapists will also give recommendations to improve your child’s skills as well as a therapy plan in the report.

Some of the available expressive language therapy treatments are listed below:

• Expressive language therapy
• Morphology intervention
• Syntactic intervention
• Colourful semantics
• Shape coding
• Word wizard
• Expressive vocabulary intervention
• Morpho-syntactic intervention

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 South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structure is used by the speech and language therapist to assess children’s sentence skills for expressive language difficulties, delay or disorder.

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