Screening & Assessment Basics
What is the main goal of a speech sound screening?
To identify children who may need further evaluation.
What does stimulability testing assess?
Whether a child can produce a sound with support.
Name one common phonological process in young children
Final consonant deletion, weak syllable deletion, vowelization...etc
What is a dialect?
A rule-based and structured variation of a language shared by a group of speakers.
What is the final step in the speech sound assessment process?
Goal selection
Name one informal screening tool
Language samples (convo, reading a passage), reading sentences
What is one benefit of using formal single-word elicitation tasks?
They have norms that you can use for comparison; you can test consonants in a variety of positions
A child shows stimulability for /k/ but not /s/. Which sound is the better initial therapy target according to a developmental/traditional perspective?
/k/, because stimulable sounds are more likely to be acquired with intervention.
What does the term bidialectal refer to?
A speaker who uses two dialects of the same language depending on context or audience.
What is one strategy for assessing a child who speaks a language the clinician does not?
Use a trained interpreter or collaborate with a bilingual SLP.
Name two things you would do as part of a comprehensive assessment
language sampling, assess intelligibility, single word elicitation tasks, assess vowels if needed, stimulability testing, contextual testing, error pattern identification, case history, oral mech exam, hearing screening, speech sound perception testing
An unfamiliar listener is assessing a child's intelligibility using closed-set word identification. What does this mean?
Listener identifies words produced using a prescribed word list as a reference
A child’s oral mech exam reveals restricted tongue movement. What is the most appropriate next step?
Refer to a specialist (e.g., ENT or oral surgeon) to evaluate structural concerns before beginning therapy.
What is one reason it’s important to identify a child’s dialect before assessing speech?
To avoid misinterpreting dialectal features as speech errors.
What is one reason a clinician might choose a non-stimulable sound as a therapy target?
To promote greater phonological change and challenge the system.
What is the difference between a screening and a full assessment?
A screening identifies potential concerns; an assessment provides a detailed diagnosis and helps you determine next steps
What is one benefit of collecting a conversational speech sample?
It provides insight into intelligibility and natural speech use.
What do maximal classification and maximal distinction refer to?
Maximal distinction: different from error sound
Maximal classification: targets different from one another
What tool can help identify whether a child is a speaker of African American English (AAE)?
The Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV) Screening Test.
What is a phoneme collapse, and why is it important in target selection?
A phoneme collapse is when a child uses one sound to represent multiple others; targeting these can lead to greater system-wide change.
You are doing discrimination testing for a child you suspect is having difficulty perceiving the difference between /s/ and /th/. You show them a picture of a target word. Identify what target word, control word, and error word you could use. (I.e., is this a ___)
example: sock = target, thock = error, pock = control
What does it mean if a child is stimulable for a sound in isolation but not in connected speech?
They may need support generalizing the sound to more complex contexts.
A child produces /s/ correctly in isolation but not in conversation. What does this suggest about therapy planning?
The child may need support with generalization; therapy should focus on using /s/ in increasingly complex contexts.
What is contrastive analysis used for in speech assessment?
Distinguish between dialectal features and true speech errors by comparing patterns across dialects.
What is one benefit of using a conversational speech sample in assessment?
It provides insight into intelligibility and functional communication.