Aaron's Speech and Language Development Assessment

This afternoon Aaron, Nolan, and I biked over to the Southwood Center to meet with Cindy McInroy, a speech-language pathologist. Following his early childhood kindergarten pre-screening on February 16, 2011, Aaron was referred for further evaluation of his articulation skills. By the time we were finally called for referral, the school year was concluding, so we decided to delay the evaluation until this fall to allow Aaron time for some maturing in his communication skills.

The following are the pathologist's notes from his evaluation:

"Aaron easily left his mother to go with the examining therapist. He easily interacted and followed directions during the evaluation. Results are considered a valid estimation of his speech and language skills.

In a language sample taken during general conversation Aaron produced utterances an average of 5 words in length or longer, which is average for his age. He reported his name, age, preschool teacher name and name of a friend. His spontaneous language includes pronouns, regular and irregular plurals, regular and -ing verbs and descriptors. Aaron answered and asked a variety of wh- questions, and gave a sequenced description of a recent event.

Aaron was 90% intelligible to the examining therapist, and did not significantly decrease on novel topics or expanded conversation. Aaron occasionally makes more errors on /s/ or other sounds in conversation, than he did on isolated words on the standardized test. This pattern of "sometimes not always" typically indicates a child will achieve sound productions at age expected ages, and currently is just not able to organize his oral-motor movements of accurate sound productions at the same rate he can produce language. At this time Aaron demonstrates normal articulation skills when compared to same age peers (i.e. his errors are considered developmental in nature). If Aaron's sound productions do not self correct he will be eligible for speech therapy at the age of 5 1/2 years.

Aaron does not meet State of MN eligibility criteria for a speech-language impairment in the area of articulation."