• The Diagnostic Process can involve one or more of the following:
     
    Kindergarten Screenings: Speech and Language teachers administer a portion of the kindergarten screening.  They will have students engage in receptive and expressive language tasks, as well as, listen to articulation and fluency skills.  They will also observe pragmatic language tasks.  If a child presents with difficulties in any of these areas, the speech and language teacher will discuss the findings with the parent or guardian and further screening or an evaluation may be recommended. Students with developmental errors in their sound production during Kindergaten Screenings will be administered a screening in the beginning of Third Grade to ensure that they have reached developmental milestones by the time they are 8 years old.
     
    Speech and Language Screenings: A parent or classroom teacher may request that a child be screened for either articulation or language concerns (receptive, expressive, pragmatic, auditory processing).  Typically, this request is brought before the Instructional Study Team (IST) at the building level and a formal request is recorded and has a timeframe.  When the screening is completed the results will be discussed with the parent and the Instructional Study Team.  If a child is found to have difficulties in language, suggestions will be made to the teacher to help the child to be more successful in the classroom setting and a formal evaluation may be requested.  If a child is found to have difficulties with articulation that is not age appropriate and impacts intelligibility, the child is recommended for speech improvement services to help improve their skills.  Suggestions will also be made to the parent and teacher to help the child be more successful in saying their sounds correctly. 
     
    Speech and Language Evaluations:  Speech and language evaluations are standardized evaluations that assess all areas of a child's communication skills.  The district has evaluations to assess articulation, fluency, oral-motor functioning, phonological awareness, language (processing, receptive, expressive, and pragmatic), and expressive and receptive vocabulary.  These evaluations are recommended by the Instructional Study Team or the parent to determine if these areas are impacting a child's ability to learn.  They are administered as  part of a multi-disciplinary approach to determine if a child requires specialized services via an Individualized Education Plan through the Special Education Department.  Some students will receive speech remediation services (RTI) to help them improve a weakness in their speech and language skills. 
     
    Language Disorder
    ASHA's committee on Language, Speech and Hearing Services In Schools has defined a language disorder as follows:
    A Language disorder is the impairment or deviant development of comprehension and/or use of spoken, written, and other symbol system.  The disorder may involve 1) the form of language (phonologic, morphologic, and syntactic systems); 2) the content of language (semantic system); and/or 3) the function of language in communication(pragmatic system) in any combination.
    (1982, p.949)
    Copyright 2003, 1995, 1987, 1980 by The Psychological Corporation, a Harcourt Assessment Company
     
     
Last Modified on October 4, 2021