Speech and Language Screening for School Children

Abstract

Speech and language difficulties are a common reason for referral to child health services during the preschool years. A speech and language problem in the early years may have significant implications for one‘s communication outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. However, there is considerable variation in what constitutes normal speech and language acquisition. Many preschool children who are late to talk improve spontaneously, while some apparently typical young children may decline in their speech and language performance in later years. The predictive power of an individual‘s speechlanguage ability for their later speech-language status improves with age. Speech and language problems at school-entry appear to be a stronger predicator for later communication issues than speech and language problems in the preschool years. With the potential long-term impact of speech and language problems, screening procedures for speech and language problems in school-age children have been developed. This chapter addresses some of the difficulties in implementing population-wide screening for speech and language problems in the early years and reviews some commonly used assessment tools for identifying school children with suspected speech and language problems. Procedures for conducting language screening that are both beneficial to school-age children and cost-effective for society are also discussed.