Assessment Checklist Product Review
Do you ever get done administering a standardized assessment to a child and feel like it was a big waste of time? In our chaotic professional lives, that is one thing that makes me flustered. I had the opportunity to review a resource created by Tatyana Elleseff MA, CCC-SLP of Smart Speech Therapy LLC and I feel like I hit the jackpot! Her product “Speech and Language Assessment Checklist for School-Aged Children” is an extremely comprehensive checklist to help SLPs select appropriate assessments based on the child’s needs. This resource is meant to be given out to caregivers and teachers who are familiar with the student to help ensure the child’s areas of need are considered across different environments. Then the SLP can analyze the responses and decide what tests to administer, or if they need the caregivers/teachers to track data on the data tracking forms provided to hone in on the most apparent areas of need. There is also an exhaustive list of assessments (along with test age administration) and the specific deficit areas they target to help guide you in making decisions about formal testing measures. Although choosing a favorite thing about this product may be unfair because there are so many awesome things about it, the thing I love the most about it is the fact that the checklist is SO detailed. It breaks speech and language down into 16 different sections and includes several specific skills under each section for teachers/caregivers to reflect on. The four areas that I was most excited to see on there (because they are often lumped under either receptive or expressive language and not given their due diligence) are: sequencing, narrative and storytelling, problem solving, and executive functioning. This resource was created to help guide SLPs into selecting the most relevant standardized assessments based off children’s areas of need, but I know that I will use it for much more than that. I know that this checklist will come in very handy when I am approaching an annual IEP and trying to narrow down exactly what must be included in a child’s annual IEP goal to help them build their speech and language skills to be successful in school. It also serves as a reminder to consider the child’s needs across several environments and that collaboration with the people who spend the most time with the child (caregivers and classroom teachers) can offer the most valuable input when making programming decisions! Check out the checklist here : http://www.smartspeechtherapy.com/shop/speech-language-assessment-checklist-for-a-school-aged-child/ or go to Smart Speech Therapy LLC’s blog http://www.smartspeechtherapy.com/ to check out all the other great resources available! How do you decide what assessments to use with students when you receive and initial referral? How do you decide what to include in your annual IEP goals to best meet the needs of your students? Please comment below-I’d love to hear!
