SLT Sample assessment letter Plain English

Speech & Language Therapy
Ballinteer Health Centre
Ballinteer Avenue, Dublin 16
Tel:
Fax:
1 March 2017
Parents of Mary O Reilly
18 Jetland Park
Rosetown
Dublin 18
Speech and Language Assessment
Private and Confidential
Dear Carol,
You brought Mary for assessment on Friday 23 February. This is a summary
of that session.
I asked you what your best hopes were from coming to this speech and
language assessment. You said you would like my opinion about whether
Mary needs to come for speech and language therapy sessions or not.
You also want to find out how to help Mary to listen more to you and to say
more sentences.
I asked you what changes you are pleased to see in Mary’s
communication over the last few months. You talked about the following:
• You told me that since this referral was made in January, Mary has started
to say “way more words” and that you are surprised as what words she
says.
• You have also noticed that she has started to say 2-word sentences
• You think that there have been “slight changes” in her pronunciation but
you said that you find it hard to pinpoint what exact sounds are getting
better.

I asked you what you have been doing that has helped Mary to make
that progress. This is what you told me:
• You don’t correct Mary any more. You said that you read on the internet
that it is better to repeat words clearly after her so you do that instead.
You have noticed that she is much less frustrated since you stopped
correcting her.
• You keep your sentences short. You find this works very well when you
are looking at books together because Mary loves books.
• You try and spend some one-to-one time with Mary. This is hard because
you have 2 other small children. However, you have found that around
11am is good when the twins are having their nap.
What did I do?
I spent most of the session getting information from you about Mary. I also
observed Mary as she played with you. Here is what I noticed.
Receptive Language: This means a child’s ability to understand what other
people are saying. This includes the understanding of words, concepts and
grammar. Mary’s receptive language is:
✔
appropriate for age
delayed for age
needs to be monitored
You are confident that Mary understands what you say to her. During the
session she seemed to respond very appropriately to what you and I said to
her.
Expressive Language: This means a child’s ability to use words meaningfully
and to join words to make sentences, tell stories and to express his/her needs
to others. Mary’s expressive language is:
✔
appropriate for age
delayed for age
needs to be monitored

During the session I heard Mary use lots of single words to name things she
was playing with (for example “spoon” “water”) and to describe (for example
“big”, “dirty”). I also heard her say some 2 word sentences (for example “me
home” “baba bed”). From what you told me and from what I observed it
seems that Mary’s sentences are shorter than what I would expect for her
age.
Speech (pronunciation): this means a child’s ability to say speech-sounds
and to use those sounds clearly in words and sentences. Mary’s speech is:
✔
appropriate for age
delayed for age
needs to be monitored
Mary is harder to understand than I would expect for her age.
Social Communication: This means a child’s overall ability to understand
and use words, gestures and facial expression to communicate. It also
includes being interested in interacting with another person, making eyecontact,
taking turns and listening. Mary’s social communication skills:
✔
appropriate for age
delayed for age
need to be monitored
You told me that Mary wants the same activities all the time (lego, car/
garage). You have noticed that she plays with them the same way all the
time. I found it hard to get her attention but then I noticed that she loved the
bubbles and was very happy for me to join in that activity with her.
I also noticed that she seemed to be doing nice “pretend” play with you.
Summary:
Mary is 2 years 10 months old. She has an expressive language delay. This
means that her sentences are shorter than I would expect for her age.

Her speech-sounds are also delayed. That means that she is harder to
understand than I would expect for her age. She is able to say individual
speech-sounds but has difficulty saying those sounds in words. You told me
that you are a bit worried about her attention and her play. That wasn’t
immediately obvious to me during the assessment session but I will keep an
eye on it when you bring her for some speech and language therapy
sessions.
It is possible that Mary will need some direct work at a later date to help
improve her speech-sounds. However, first it will be more useful to help the
development of her expressive language. This means that we will look at
ways to help her sentences to get longer.
What happens next?
I will contact you in the next few weeks to arrange some sessions for you and
Mary. In each of these sessions we will make a 3 minute video of you and
Mary playing together. We will then look back on the video together to see
what you are doing that seems to help Mary say longer sentences. You can
then focus on doing that even more at home.
Once Mary’s vocabulary grows and her sentences get longer, we can decide if
we need to work on her speech sounds more directly.
I hope that I have correctly written everything that you told me. Let me know if
I haven’t. If you have any questions about this report feel free to phone or
email me.
Yours sincerely,
Senior Speech and Language Therapist
Ballinteer Health Centre
! !01 ******* (Wednesday – Friday) ! *****.******@hse.ie
!