Re: Re: Speech Language Assessments - What gets tested, what stands out? WAS: What s

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We've always had good luck having assessments done by the ST here. If we didn't like the eval, we got another one done at school expense (IEE) and we've never not been happy with the testing. They have done testing in all areas including pragmatic and done other informal tests regarding social skills. There are a lot of tests that can be done that can also measure things like ability to problem solve, for one example. Observation and data from teachers can provide a lot of information towards a speech eval as well. I wouldn't discount a ST for a good speech evaluation. We have one we use outside of school, but the one in the school always did a wonderful job. She always went over and discussed social aspects and I didn't have to ask for that. She is working on social skills with our ds who is 9 yo, not autistic. I know of others who see other therapists in this area who specialize in autism/autism related speech needs. I do not think it is as foreign as you might think or as your school might make you feel.

I would say though that having pragmatic language eval's is not always an good indication of pragmatic language needs. My 12 yo ds (hfa) passed the pragmatic language test with extra high scores even though he couldn't even form an original sentence on his own. We had taught him so much in ABA but his application was still coming along!! So he could answer questions but not actually do it himself in real life. Now, he morphed into it. Eventually, he started using what he knew already. But my point is, his score did not give a good indication of his ability. But the school ST noted that in her report and he kept getting therapy for pragmatics. Now I wish the OT was half as good here....

RoxannaYou're UniqueJust like everyone else...

( ) Re: Speech Language Assessments - What gets tested, what stands out? WAS: What s

> We haven't been able to get him a speech/language assessment, which I assume would provide us with some answers to verbal processing speed questions, because it was always deemed, where we lived before, that his speech was fine, and not hindering his academic grades, and therefore he was bumped to the bottom of the priority wait list !!! Very frustrating.You realize you can do this yourself, right? You don't have to wait for the school to decide to do it. You can get assessments done through your health insurance. Then you take them back to the school. This is what we did. We would possibly have waited until the end of time for the school to decide he needed an assessment.> For anyone that has had a speech language assessment with their child(ren), what kind of things do they test? And what will stand out for Aspies?First of all, speech assessments are often not terribly helpful for aspies. The types of communication problems aspies have are not the types things SLPs are typically trained to detect. There are a few SLPs out there who have made it their business to learn about such things, but they are hard to find and may simply not be there in some geographic areas. Your best bet is an autism evaluation by a professional with a specialty in autism. This will usually be a team of people including psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, neuropsychologists, developmental pediatricians. If the need is there, possibly a neurologist. They will give your child a battery of tests designed specifically for autism, and they cover all these communication issues. Where you go to get such an evaluation will vary depending on where you live and what the resources are there. We went to an developmental pediatrics clinic attached to a children's hospital.They will note such things as whether he can carry a conversation with or without prompts, how many and what kind of prompts, whether he can stick to a subject, whether he asks appropriate questions, they'll note how he does or doesn't use body language/facial expression, reads same from other people, can he look at a scene in a picture and guess what just happened? Can he make a good guess as to what might happen next? Can he look at a picture and tell the relationships of the people in the picture--is it a picture of a father and son or two friends? How can one tell? If he is Asperger, you'll be shocked at how little of this he can do.Ruth

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