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

[Guest guest]

> 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

[Guest guest]

>

> The code word is pragmatics. You want to get someone who works with 'children

on the spectrum' with special work on pragmatics. A very experienced therapist

will know exactly what to do.

>

> I started my dd with someone who has no experience with kids on the spectrum,

but I told her we should be working on pragmatics... she looked it up and

prepared a plan. She is right on target now, so use that secret word.

>