Screenings
Speech & Language Screens
Our free speech-language screens provide a brief assessment of a child’s communication and learning skills. These are done in our offices as well as at area preschools, upon request. During these 30-minute consultations, one of our speech-language therapists evaluates a child’s speech and language development in several important areas and will identify if further assessment is warranted.
Areas of speech and language assessed at screenings:
Expressive Language
What your child says... We assess overall verbal output, vocabulary, sentence use and structure, pronoun use (me, you, my, him/her, he/she), regular and irregular verb use, and use of describing words (big, red, etc.).
Receptive Language
What your child understands... We assess comprehension of age-appropriate vocabulary (e.g. identifying by pointing: body parts, colors, pictures), answering wh-questions (e.g. "Where do you sleep?"), and understanding of prepositions (e.g., following directions to put a block under/over/next to an object).
Voice
Vocal qualities such as a hoarse or scratchy voice, volume, or complaints of sore throat.
Fluency
Repetition of sounds, words, and/or phrases (b-b-ball, I want – I want – I want the ball), prolongations of sounds in words (I wwwwwwant to go), difficulties with getting sounds out.
Articulation
Amount of speech understandable to an unfamiliar listener (80-90% for a preschooler) except for later developing sounds (l, r, ch, sh, s, z, v, or j).
Pragmatic (Social) Language
Responding to their name, joint attention (able to look at an object that is pointed out by another), eye contact, turn taking, responding to emotions.
Reading Screens
We offer free reading screens at both of CSRC's locations. Depending on a child's age and needs one of our reading specialists or speech-language pathologists will do a brief assessment of important literacy skills.
Areas of literacy assessed at screenings:
Decoding Skill
A student's ability to identify letter sounds and then blend these into words. Real and nonsense words are used to isolate this skill from sight word reading.
Miscue and Strategy Analysis
We use a running record to assess a reader's behaviors and strategies, such as omissions, reversals, corrections, and substitutions, among others.
Comprehension
A student's ability to internalize and understand the meaning of text as a whole.
Other areas as appropriate
These include fluency and sight word reading.