Watch the video to hear me talk all about bilingual speech therapy evaluations.
Performing Speech Therapy Evaluations
Performing speech therapy evaluations is a critical skill of speech-language pathologists. Why?
- To be sure there is a deficit requiring speech therapy
- To know where to start therapy and create treatment plans.
- For re-evaluation to determine progress and continued eligibility for speech
Speech Therapy Evaluations Basics
Speech therapy evaluations include the following:
- Formal assessments
- Informal assessments
- Parent interview
- Teacher interview
- Dynamic assessment
- Student observation
After an evaluation is completed, the speech pathologist writes a report. The report is presented to the special education team, including the parents, at the eligibility meeting. The report will detail any deficiencies present and may indicate a recommendation either for or against speech therapy.
Speech Therapy in the Schools
If therapy is recommended after an evaluation, an individual education plan (IEP) is written up. The IEP contains a summary of the evaluation results, speech therapy goals, and minutes of intervention per week or month.
Speech Therapy in Pediatric Clinics
In a pediatric clinic, the evaluation will typically identify goals suggestions. Those goals drive therapy sessions. There are no IEPs in clinics. Speech therapy is focused on both short and long term goals that are detailed in the evaluation report. Speech therapy progress notes are required after each session.
Bilingual Speech Therapy Requires Additional Time and Assessments
If a student is bilingual, a thorough evaluation is best practice. Why? Because if a student is just struggling learning to learn English, that does not fall under the umbrella of special education. Those students need ESL support, not special education or speech therapy.
However, if you extra time to evaluate in both languages, you need a lot of time. You also need extra time if you have to bring in a bilingual speech pathologist to test in the non-English language. Testing can consist some or all of the following:
- Formal assessments in English and Spanish
- Informal assessments in English and Spanish
- Parent interview in Spanish
- Teacher interview
- Dynamic assessment in English and Spanish
- Student observation
You can see why it can take more time to complete bilingual evaluations
Speech and Language Screening
I should probably back up and discuss screening. Before an SLP or bilingual SLP jumps into a full evaluation, they typically will conduct a screening with parental consent. How the screening process starts is that the a teacher mentions a concern to a speech pathologist. Then the speech pathologist will observe the student in the classroom. If the speech path has concerns, then they will seek out parental consent to conduct a a brief screening outside of the classroom setting.
Any Questions about Speech Therapy Evaluations?
Did you ever wonder what happens in a bilingual speech therapy evaluation? I run through some of the basics of a bilingual speech therapy evaluation in this video.
Check out this other blog post about setting up your own evaluation-only speech therapy private practice: 12 Tips to Start Bilingual Speech Therapy Evaluations Only Private Practice.