Speech Evaluation/Therapy

I am taking my 18 month old twins for an evaluation with a speech therapist. I also have an audiology appointment, although the doctor and myself are pretty sure there is no hearing issue, but are doing it anyway.

My twins were 6 weeks premature. They are very expressive and babble all day. They comprehend what I say to them, and follow commands. They say words like mama, dada, papa, bye, the usual. And a ton of other "words", none of which are identifiable to me, anyway. So we are checking things out early - better to be safe than sorry.

My question is, to those who have been down this road, what should I expect at the evaluation? Does the therapist just try to talk to the babies? And see if they respond? Just curious how that part will work...


Thanks in advance.

Rose

 

In my situation the therapist came to the house. I was concerned about DS and not DD. And the first thing she said was that my DD was super advanced for talking and that was why DS looked to be so behind. Next she sat on the floor and played with them and asked me questions.... then she scored it...that was it, it was about an hour and it was kind of fun and interesting... She also said 10 words at 18 mos is the bar, this includes signs and distinguishing sounds for specific objects.

I totally recommend the Signing Time videos for speech delays (well for anyone really) and so did the therapist. I have never had a communication issue with them even when I was concerned about speech.

HTH

 

The speech portion of our evaluation mostly consisted of them asking me questions about her language and expression, not them trying to get them to say things. She did a few things with Grace, but not nearly as much as the OT and PT did when evaluating her.

I wasn't worried about her speech at all, but it is part of how they handle EI in our district, so she gets it along with OT/PT. And the girl never ever talks when she's there, I don't know why, she just refuses to. She doesn't talk until we sing the goodbye song, then she repeats bye over and over. But she talks our ear off at home, so I'm not too worried.

 

We did Sarah's evaluation at 2 years rather than 18 months, so it was probably a little different. But mostly Sarah just played with toys in the therapist's office while the therapist observed her. Of course Sarah did not make a peep the entire time , but they're used to that. They could still get a pretty good sense of her receptive language. To evaluate her spoken language, mostly the therapist asked me a set of questions: Does she mimic speech, does she use two-word combinations, etc. Then she scored Sarah using a worksheet.

It turned out that she scored average on receptive language and normal, but the low end of normal, on spoken language. We decided to sign her up for a few sessions of therapy, but we'll probably quit after the 4th one next week. I was mostly just interested to see what it was like, but she's been making so much progress that it doesn't really seem necessary anymore.

 

MY pedi referred us for a 'better safe than sorry' eval as well. The EI evaluator came to our house and asked me a ton of questions, then got on the floor with each twins individually and did all kinds of activities with blocks and other toys. They start with an easy task and build upon it until the child cannot accomplish it. This gives them an idea at what level the child is functioning at. DH did not know this, and was getting worried that his kids were failing at something, but the point is to get to the point that they can't do it. Even though the only concern was a sppech delay, EI assessed everything, including gross and fine motor skills and speech. The speech assessment consists of two parts, expressive -what they say and receptive (I think that is waht they call it) - what they understand. They average those two parts together to figure if a child will qualify for therapy. In our case, the twins were 16 months old at the time of the eval, and they scored at an 11 month old level for the expressive, but a 22 month old level for the receptive, so when combined they were right on target. Does that make sense? They sent me a nice typed up report of the complete eval, and did not recommend any therapy. They told me that if at 2 years old they did not have a vocabulary of 10 words to call back and have them reassessed. Since then the twins have really taken off and have more than 10 words now.

HTH, and good luck!!

 

My DS had a speech eval at 18 months because he wasn't saying anything at that point, not even mama or dada. He's also 6 weeks early. The speech therapist asked me a lot of questions and then tried to get DS to repeat/say some words and sounds. She also tried to get him to mimic some facial movements, like opening his mouth when she asked him to. He qualified for EI and is now getting speech therapy twice a week, which I think is helping. Good luck!

thea

 

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'll update at the end of the month when we have our appointment!

 

We had DS evaluated @ 2. We took him to child find and they basically sit w/ him, try to talk to him, etc. Child Find also tested across the board (cognitive, fine & gross motor, expressive/receptive language and social/adaptive skills). I am a preschool spec. ed. teacher and have a degree in Speech pathology, so I knew DS' only problem was expressive language, but it was still good to see that he was age appropriate w/ teh other areas.

Most of the evaluation was my feedback. Try to be as honest as possible. If they can't do something/say something, tell them. It'll give them the most accurate picture of your children.

I was really so stressed out and worried that DS didn't talk (only 10 words @ 2 years old) and DD was a motor mouth (still is). DS has been receiving speech for a little over a year and when we meet new people and mention he goes to speech, they always ask "why, he talks just fine!" I love hearing htat. I hope the same happens for you!!!