WHAT TO EXPECT DURING MY CHILD'S SPEECH-LANGUAGE EVALUATION | PHILIPPINES

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This is based on my experience practicing as an SLP for over 4 years. I won't be able to upload photos of my sessions for confidentiality purposes.

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THINGS TO REMEMBER AND PREPARE BEFORE GOING TO THE CLINIC/HOSPITAL

• Call the clinic or hospital first to book an appointment as all sessions are scheduled by hour and always come on time or atleast 10 minutes before the schedule. (Coming early before the session will give your child time to observe and adjust well to the new environment.)
• Bring a photocopy of the child's documents such as Pediatrician's Referral or Evaluation Report and School report. You might also want to ask the secretary what other documents they need.
• It is important that you also inform your child where you're going, who you're meeting, what you'll be doing so they also know what to expect. (Ex: I want you to know that we will go to a new place called (center). You will be meeting and playing with Teacher Shanna. You will do lots of activities, read books, play toys and I hope you will enjoy your time there.)
• Bring snacks, water and extra clothes for your child in case they need it during the session.
  
  

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FIRST VISIT AT THE CLINIC

During your first visit at the clinic, the secretary and/or assigned Speech Therapist will greet you, confirm your appointment and ask for the documents/reports. The evaluation procedure usually lasts for one (1) hour but it could continue on your next visit when necessary depending on the child’s participation (maybe the child had tantrums and clinician only got little information) or other areas to assess (Sometimes there may be a concern in feeding so it will be checked in the next visit).

Areas that the SLP will check are:

• Articulation (how the child produces the sounds in words and sentences)
• Language (how the child understands and uses language)
• Play (how the child uses toys, interacts and think)
• Feeding/Swallowing (concerns during mealtime).

Within the first few minutes, the SLP will ask you to fill up a case history form where you'll be asked demographic information, medical history, education, speech and language milestones, feeding/swallowing information , child’s daily activities and your concerns and goals for therapy. It is important to fill in specific details so the clinician can have a good understanding of your child’s character, skills, history and environment.

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

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EVALUATION PROPER

The SLP will evaluate the child using standardized assessment and informal assessment.

A Standardized assessment is like a formal exam with strict rules to follow where child’s responses will be scored and compared to the average skills of a large population of children. A lot of this standardized tools can be culturally and linguistically biased because we have different backgrounds and usually the results are compared to children in English speaking countries.

When a child cannot cooperate or participate in a standardized assessment (i.e. child speaks Tagalog or a different dialect, child cannot sit still), the SLP would do an informal assessment. Informal Assessment is more flexible and less strict. It is like a general checklist of the expected skills or milestones at his age that the SLP tries to check through observation (e.g. We give the child toys and see if he talks about it, we ask questions and check if he can understand and answer, we let them make a story about a scene in a book to get samples of their words and sentences, we also observe how they express their needs.).

In the Philippines, it is hard to use standardized assessment considering we are multilingual, our environment and basically the overall difference in how we use English language compared to other countries. That is why clinicians do informal assessment to get the most of the child’s skills.

The parents may or may not join the evaluation procedure. That usually depends, based on my experience sometimes the child can get distracted, the child might respond differently or rely when the parent is around and also the parents try to help their child answer the questions which affects the results of the evaluation.

Source: Photo by Shirota Yuri on Unsplash

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AFTER EVALUATAION

After gathering information, the SLP will determine if the child needs speech therapy or not. If child needs speech therapy, the SLP will discuss the findings of the assessment, the therapy goals, frequency of therapy, schedule, and what to prepare for the first therapy session. There will also be a re-evaluation usually after 3 to 6 months to check if there’s improvement and what other skills to work on.

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

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It is important to note that the initial evaluation and therapy session are priced differently. A Speech-Language evaluation is also different from a Neurodevelopmental Pediatrician’s evaluation. I want to include this information here because sometimes some parents would ask why is there another evaluation. The Neurodevelopmenta Pediatrician evaluates the overall developmental skills and explains the diagnosis such as Autism Spectrum Disorder while the SLP focuses on the speech, language and swallowing skills and gives you a clinical impression about it such as Receptive Language Disorder. It is only the Neurodevelopmental Pediatrician who can diagnose your child in terms of overall development while the SLP covers the language/swallowing part.

If you feel that your child needs a little more help in expressing himself or doing daily activities, don't hesitate to immediately seek for a consultation with a Pediatrician so you can be guided and referred for early intervention. With or without a diagnosis, it is important to keep in mind that we want to focus on how to help your child improve their skills so they can be independent and they can reach their maximum potential.

Everyone in the team, the doctor, the therapists, the teachers are your partners in helping you and your child. ❤️

Please note that this is for Pediatric population or children. I will make another blog regarding Speech and Language Evaluation for the Geriatric population or Adults. Keep posted! Thanks!