Assessments help teachers and professionals understand your child’s strengths and challenges.
They also help them work out what extra support your child needs to achieve and get the most from their education.
Assessing your child’s needs
A speech pathologist can assess your child’s speech, language and communication skills. You can talk to your child’s teacher or your family doctor about this.
All children learn at different rates. Teachers can assess your child’s learning needs and identify any reasonable adjustments needed.
Communication assessments
Speech pathologists do speech, language and communication assessments.
These include observing your child and interviews with you and their teacher. This is so they can take into account family history and your child’s development.
There will also be tests that look at your child’s speech, language and communication skills.
This may include assessing their:
- speech – for example, difficulties saying certain sounds
- understanding and use of language – for example, using the right words at the right time
- social communication – for example, taking turns in conversations
- early reading and writing skills – for example, knowing the sounds that make up words
- voice – for example, if their voice is husky
- stuttering.
After an assessment
Speech pathologists can work with teachers to identify each child’s learning needs and the adjustments to support their learning.
Your child’s teacher will work with you to plan the personalised learning and support your child needs.
To do this, they'll use:
- assessment results
- observation results
- information from people who know your child well.
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