Grace's Speech Therapy Evaluation

09/21/2011

We had Grace evaluated at Camp Hippo, which is where she goes on Wednesdays from 8-11 for PT, OT, and speech therapy. This evaluation is from her speech therapist, Michelle.

Language:
Auditory Comprehension has an age-equivalency of 8 months.
Expressive Communication has an age-equivalency of 1 year 1 month.
Total Language Score resulted in an age-equivalency of 10 months.

Grace could:

• shake/bang objects in play
• actively search for source of sound when source is not visible
• look at objects or people the caregiver calls attention to
• understand a specific word or phrase for family members, pets, objects or social routines
• use more than one object in play
• demonstrate appropriate use of objects in play such as a ball, and identify body parts on self.

Grace could not:

• complete age appropriate tasks such as anticipate what will happen next
• respond to no-no
• follow routines or familiar directions with cues
• identify familiar objects from a group of objects
• understand inhibitory words
• understand verbs in context
• understand spatial concepts
• understand pronouns such as me, my, and your.

Expressively, Grace was able to:

• babble two syllables
• demonstrate a vocabulary of at least one word
• extend toys or point to objects to show others
• use 5-10 words.

Grace was not observed to:

• produce a variety of consonant sounds
• initiate a turn-taking game or social routine
• imitate words
• produce different types of consonant-vowel combination
  
• babble short syllable strings with inflection similar to adult speech
• name objects in photographs
• use more words than gestures to communicate
• ask questions.

Oral motor:

• demonstrated decreased lingual and labial tone, causing drooling, inefficient feeding skills, and decreased speech intelligibility.
• does not have appropriate labial seal, causing difficulty drinking from a straw and loss of food from the mouth during chewing and swallowing.
  
• Due to decreased lingual tone and strength, Grace has difficulty forming a cohesive bolus, causing residue to be left in oral cavity.
  
• Difficulty moving food from side to side of mouth
• Munches food with front teeth rather than molars.
• Decreased feeding efficiency and speech intelligibility.
  

Pragmatics:
During a structured activity with her peers, Grace was observed to require maximal physical and verbal cues to refrain from over-engaging peers, turn-taking, and initiating/maintaining eye contact with peers. Services would be most appropriate in a natural environment where peer-to-peer opportunities are provided. Grace's pragmatic skills are not within normal limits and are a concern at this time.

Recommendations:
Results indicate an auditory comprehension/receptive delay of 1 year 4 months, and an expressive language delay of 1 year. Based on results Grace should participate in speech therapy once weekly for 60 minutes...

This is certified as a chronic condition that necessitates 6 months or more of skilled therapeutic intervention.

Shew...that's it for speech. Basically, she should have been getting speech that whole time in CA.

Amanda