Assess
Once concerns about a child's speech and language have been identified, more detailed assessment is likely to be needed to identify the specific areas of concern and potential barriers to learning.
When considering a child's language level, it is important to remember that there are many factors that can affect language development, such as:
Assessing Language Development
There are a number of detailed language assessments available to buy. These range from standardised tests, e.g. WellComm that compare children’s language to other children of their age or more detailed checklists to inform intervention, e.g. Teaching Talking
Staffordshire County Council's Early Outcomes Fund Project aims to develop a range of strategies and initiatives that will improve children’s speech, language and communication in the early years by providing training in the Early Langauage Screening Tool and the six week Time to Talk intervention.
However, there are a number of other assessments that are free that will give a lot of information about a child’s language skills that settings can use as an initial assessment that can inform any support and be repeated to assess progress, for example:
During your observations of the child, focus on the following:
Interest in communicating
Does the child appear to be interested in communicating with others? Are they trying to communicate with others by pulling adults, pointing etc. If not refer to the Social Communication section of this toolkit for further details.
Attention/Concentration
Does the child focus their attention for periods of time? Does the child watch other children for periods of time? Do they sit and complete activities and remain at activities for periods of time?
Spoken language
How many words does the child use – note the words you hear the child say and keep a running record. Include what phrases the child uses if they are putting words together.
Purpose of Communication
What the child is using the words for – is it to name objects or comment on something, request something or is it just a random learnt phrase for no apparent purpose.
Understanding of Language
Does the child follow instructions containing one, two or three information carrying words, eg Where’s the car? (one information carrying word when there are different objects), where’s the blue car? (two information carrying words when there are different colour cars and different objects) and Where’s the big blue car? (three information carrying words when there are different sizes of blue car, different coloured cars and different objects).
Speech sounds
Speech sounds develop at different times and it is not unusual for some children to have difficulty pronouncing some speech sounds when they start school. Please see the speech sound development chart for more details. However, if a child has been speaking for a while and there are concerns about speech sounds note the particular sounds that the child has difficulty proouncing and use the chart to check it is not expected for their age.
Conclusions from your Language Assessment
The information from these observations will give you the information you need:
- to identify the main area of communication that the child is finding most difficult
- to plan some targeted support in that area causing concern
- in order to assess progress over time.
If your assessments show a significant delay in language skills, an immediate referral to the Speech and Language Therapy Service may be needed. Please refer to the outside agencies section of this toolkit for more details.