Speech and Language Therapy Evaluation in Miami

The Purpose of a Speech and Language Evaluation

A speech therapy evaluation is used to help determine your child’s current levels of speech and language, their strengths and weaknesses, and if therapy can help your child achieve more independently.

During an evaluation, one of our trained and licensed speech-language pathologists will complete formal and informal evaluations with your child in order to design a specialized treatment plan with measurable goals. You will also complete a caregiver interview to gather all of the necessary information.

If you or your doctor have any concerns about your child’s development, an evaluation is a great place to start.

With so much information available to us on the internet and comparing our children to our friends and family’s other children, it can be frustrating and difficult to determine if your child needs extra support or if they are right where they need to be.

Our speech therapists excel in using standardized assessments and will interpret the results of each test with the background information you have given to help determine where your child is developmental with their speech and language and if therapy will help them achieve more.

Your pediatrician will provide you with a referral for speech therapy if you or they have concerns.

What to Expect During a Speech and Language Evaluation

The therapist will begin the evaluation by asking questions about your child’s developmental history and what your concerns are for your child’s speech and language. These questions include things such as pregnancy complications, birth weight and time, when they hit physical milestones (sitting up, crawling, walking, talking), any medications or diagnoses your child has, previous therapies, current schooling, and other languages besides English that your child hears day to day.

Based on your answers and your child’s age, we will choose an evaluation that best suits your child to help us determine her current levels of understanding (receptive language) and use of language (expressive language). If your concerns are for stuttering, articulation (how well your child uses the different sounds and is able to be understood), or reading comprehension we will use a different evaluation to test those.

After the assessment is completed, the therapist will go over the results of the test, what your child did well with (their strengths), what some things are that we will work on in therapy (areas of concerns), what you can work on at home, and how often we would like to see your child for therapy at the office.

At this time, we will also discuss if any other therapies (occupational therapy, physical therapy, feeding therapy, music therapy, art therapy, and/or behavior therapy) or doctors (ENT, neurologist, etc.) are recommended.

Why Always Keep Progressing?

At Always Keep Progressing, our speech therapists work with you to get your child to their highest levels. Our therapists are all trained with a variety of skills including PROMPT, PECS, DIR Floortime, and more. We have over 15 different assessments that we use to tailor each evaluation to what is best for each child. Our therapists are here to help you and your child continue to make positive progress in their speech and language development. If you think your child needs a speech and language evaluation, reach out to your pediatrician to obtain a referral, or call us at 786-206-4151 for more information.