CRITERIA FOR SPEECH REFERRAL

The following questions may help guide you to determine whether or not a child should be referred for consideration in the speech or language correction program: 1. Has the child mastered the defective sound at his/her age level? (Pre-K) ____31/2____ p, m, h, n, w, b,
(K-garten) (1st) (2nd) (3rd)

____4 1/2____ k, g, d, t, ng, y

____5 1/2____ ____6 1/2____ ____7 1/2____ f v, sh, zh, ch, j, th, l s, z, wh, r, th

2. Does the child substitute one sound for another? (wed for red) 3. Does the child omit or distort sounds? 4. Is the child reasonably hard to understand during conversational speech? 5. Does the child have difficulty getting words out? Does he/she struggle to say a word or repeat a whole word or part of the word? (the b-b-b-bat, or the-the-the bat) 6. Is the childs speech markedly immature in comparison to his/her classmates? 7. Does the child use shorter and simpler sentences then his/her classmates or have inappropriate sentence structure? 8. Is the child teased in class or on the playground by his/her classmates because of speech difficulties? 9. Is the parent concerned about the childs speech? 10. Does the child demonstrate a hoarse or raspy voice quality for a longer period than three week? Does the childs speech have a nasal or denasal quality? 11. Does the child demonstrate auditory hearing, discrimination, or perceptual difficulty? (misunderstands directions, difficulty sounding out words, spelling words from dictation) 12. As a summary consider this: Does the childs speech draw attention, interfere with communication, or appear to make him/her withdraw from social situations, or affect the childs classroom academic performance?