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Speech and Language Goal Report
Parent/Guardian(s): Beatriz Ortega Lovera and Guillermo
Camargo Ortega
Date of Birth: December 27, 2018
Date of Assessment:
Age: 4 years 9 months
Speech-Language Pathologist: Emily Bailey
Main concerns
Luna’s mom, Beatriz, reported concerns regarding Luna’s expressive language,
fluency, and speech sounds.
Name: Luna Camargo
Regarding her expressive language, mom reported concerns with her ability to
share information about her day and using complete sentences. She reported
that she switches Spanish and English in her sentences and will omit verbs in
sentences.
Regarding her speech sounds, she reported that it can sometimes be difficult
to understand what she is saying.
History
Regarding her fluency, she reported that she will sometimes stutter when she
is trying to express her ideas and has displayed tension in her face and/or body
when she is trying to talk.
Luna is a kind and friendly 4 year-old girl who lives with her parents and sister,
Mia in Coquitlam, BC. Luna also attends school 5 days per week at Mountain
View Elementary. Luna is exposed to Spanish 100% of the time at home.
English is spoken 100% of the time at school. At her dance class, Luna is
exposed to both English and Spanish.
Luna was born full term. Her parents reported Luna sat up on her own at 8
months, began crawling at 10 months and began walking at 14 months. Luna
said her first word at around 12 months. She began combining 2 words after
24 months and 3+ words around 3 years old. There were no reported
concerns with her vision and hearing.
Luna was previously seen by two different Speech-Language Pathologists.
Luna’s mom reported that Luna was not very expressive during these sessions
and appeared to be aware that she was being assessed. Her mom reported
concerns that this will occur again. Mom shared a report from Luna’s previous
SLP who suspected Luna to have a mild Developmental Language Disorder.
The report revealed difficulties with regular past tense, irregular past tense,
copula ‘be’, possessive’s, plurals and third person singular -s. According to this
SLP report, Luna uses the following phonological processes: word final
consonant deletion, stopping of ‘th’, consonant cluster reduction,
deaffrication and vowel simplification. She was also reported to have a frontal
lisp.
Assessment results
Luna’s mom reported that she likes Princess Peach and playing with her
kitchen toy.
An informal assessment and clinical observations were completed to assess
Luna’s speech, language, play and social skills. The assessment was completed
in English. Luna was friendly when the SLP greeted her and warmed up quickly
to the SLP. Luna attended well to all activities and was eager to engage with the
materials brought by the SLP. The findings from the assessment are
summarised below:
When reading this report, please remember that your Luna’s performance on assessments may
be affected by a number of factors such as their health on the day, medications they have taken,
time of day or their mood.
Receptive Language:
Receptive Language is defined as the “input” of language, the ability to
understand and comprehend spoken language that you hear or read. Through
observations and discussion with Luna’ parents, the following strengths and
areas for improvement were identified:
Strengths in Luna’s receptive language skills were noted in her ability to identify
objects, action words, and features of objects in pictures. She was observed to
understand some basic concepts such as above, below, more, up, and down.
She demonstrated the ability to follow multi-step instructions, understood whquestions (who, what, when where and why) and understood time sequences
(e.g., first and next).
Luna was occasionally observed to respond to ‘why’ questions with ‘what’
responses and ‘what’ questions with ‘who’ responses. She also at times needed
instructions to be repeated more than once.
Expressive Language:
Expressive language is defined as ability to express oneself. This can include the
ability to request objects, make choices, ask questions, answer, and describe
events. Speaking, gesturing (waving, pointing), writing (texting, emailing), facial
expressions (crying, smiling), and vocalizations (crying, yelling) are all examples
of expressive language. Through observations and discussion with Luna’s
parents, the following strengths and areas for improvement were identified:
Relative strengths in Luna’s expressive language were noted in her ability to
make requests, ask questions, label items in pictures, label functions of objects,
and use sentences with multiple words. While playing with various toys, she
described her current actions as well as what she was planning to do next and
gave instructions to the SLP. She was observed to use negation (e.g., “he don’t
do nothing”), articles (e.g., “I can find the key”, “a treasure box”), prepositions
(e.g., “he jump in and then he go to fight bowser”) and conjunctions (e.g.,
because, if, when, so). She was observed to mainly use present tense in
conversation as well as simple future tense with ‘will’ when describing her next
actions during activities (e.g., “I will add some cheese”). She asked whquestions as well as questions beginning with ‘do’ (e.g., “do you like Toad?”).
Areas of improvement were noted in Luna’s expressive language. Luna was
observed to omit copula ‘be’ from her sentences (e.g., “a shark gonna get us”)
and made inconsistent errors with plurals (e.g., “do you have any sprinkle?”).
Luna was observed to have difficulty using past tense verbs and typically used
the verb in first person instead of the past tense form (e.g., “the pirate drop the
treasure box that make the x”, “it start raining”). She was not observed to use
third person singular -s in present tense and instead used the first person
singular verb form. Errors were also noted with the verb ‘do’ (e.g., “Peach don’t
fall down, “he had to did it, he had to do all the stuff”). While sharing what Luna
was going to be for Halloween and asking what the SLP’s mom was going to
dress up as, she used the noun ‘costume’ as a verb (e.g., “what her gonna
cost?”, “my cost is Princess Peach”). She was observed to make errors with
pronouns, substituting ‘she’ for ‘he’ or ‘her’ (e.g., “and then he trap her, cause
her is crying”).
Luna was noted to refer to any time in the future as ‘tomorrow’. For example,
when the SLP asked when her birthday is she said “tomorrow” and followed
this by saying it’s in “too many weeks”. She was observed to use ‘too many’ in
replacement of more appropriate concept words for the context such as
‘many’, ‘a lot’, ‘so’ or ‘very’ (e.g., “my birthday is in too many weeks” “Bowser
is so, so, so big, too many big”, “there’s too many mushrooms”).
In conversation, it was sometimes difficult to follow the ideas she was trying to
express. For example, when describing the Super Mario movie, she spoke
quickly and used vague language, making it difficult for the SLP to fully
understand what she was describing. Below are two examples of Luna
discussing the Super Mario movie.
“Now princess peach is so happy because they make her too many purple, so
nobody see Princess Peach castle because Bowser wanna take her because he
moving his boat to make it because that wanna move it like purple too cause
nobody wanna see Princess Peach castle”.
“I saw a sound inside ‘haha’ and then Princess Peach said ‘help me’ and then
he trap her because her is crying cause he wanna save her because Bowser is
so so so big, too many big”.
For more information on language and social development, you may access resources online such as those
by HealthLinkBC and Therapy Materials Vault (please note some materials may require purchase) or speak
with your Speech-Language Pathologist for more information.
Oral Narration:
Oral Narration measures the ability to weave words and sentences into stories
that contain characters who engage in goal-directed actions that are related
to complicating event, consequences, and resolutions. The SLP created a short
story using picture cards and asked Luna to repeat the story back using the
visuals for support. Below is the story the SLP created followed by Luna’s
retell.
Original Story:
Once upon a time, a princess wanted to have a party with all of her friends,
especially her best friend Daisy. She was cooking in her kitchen all day long.
She set up her party outside with cakes, cupcakes, and tea for her friends.
Suddenly, a storm came, and it started raining on her party. The princess was
so sad, but she had an idea. She remembered she had a magic wand that
would summon a dragon. The dragon flew by and blew fire all through the sky.
It stopped raining, the party was saved, and the princess was so happy. Daisy
came and loved all the food that the princess made for her.
Luna’s retell:
So princess on the kitchen and then it start. So, the princess so happy and it
start raining, and then the princess sad and he have a magic. And the dragon
is he’s making starting to the rain and then her happy and then daisy is so
finish.
Luna was able to recall most of the main events that occurred, including
identifying the setting and the problem in the story. While the information
she provided was generally correct to what happened in the story, she had
difficulty restating many of the details of the story. Her story contained
grammatical errors and contained inappropriate sentence structure, making
the story difficult to follow.
When asked to provide her own narrative with wordless picture cards, Luna
included some of the essential story elements. Luna’s narrative was
disorganized and appeared to be describing the events on the picture cards.
Her retell contained many grammatical errors and incorrect sentence
structure. She did not use causal relationships (e.g., “but”) or include a clear
ending. Luna included temporal relationships (e.g., “and” or “and then”). She
included unusual descriptions of pictures she was using to support her story
such as “the unicorn eat the raining” in reference to a picture of a unicorn
that was crying.
Luna’s narrative:
There’s a map when we (?) and the key. Then the pirate drop the treasure box
that make the x. Then the key come up. Then he the key so he can open the
treasure box then there’s a lot of the stuff into the treasure box then there’s a
unicorn now he’s happy to see the treasure box and the unicorn is so eating
raining and then this the witch is so mad and then the ice cream it fall down
and then the cloud is raining and then and then they finish the ice cream.
Play and Social Skills:
Social skills refer to Luna’s ability to interact with other people. Many
different skills fall under the umbrella of social skills, including understanding
social rules, using correct body language, using appropriate language, and
using empathy to understand the world from someone else’s point of
view. Many children with language delays also have difficulty with social
interaction. The following observations were made of Luna’s social and play
skills during the assessment:
Luna demonstrated strong play and social skills. She was engaged with the SLP
throughout the assessment and was open to trying new activities. Luna was
also eager to share her toys with the SLP. She was flexible to new ideas and was
observed to be very creative in her play. Luna engaged in pretend play with a
dollhouse, kitchen toys, puppets, and her stuffed animal. Luna demonstrated
perspective taking skills through her story telling as well as through pretend
play where she created dialogue from the perspective of puppets and stuffed
animals. She participated in back and forth conversation and asked SLP
personal questions such as what the SLP was going to dress up as for Halloween
and who the SLP’s favourite Mario character is.
When playing games with a set of rules (e.g., Dragon Dash, Guess Who), Luna
was observed to create her own rules for the game. SLP gave Luna reminders
about how the game is intended to be played, but she preferred to play the
game in her own way.
Fluency
Fluency was not formally assessed. Luna was observed to occasionally use
partial phrase repetitions and revisions in conversation, particularly when
speaking quickly. This will continue to be monitored.
Articulation and Phonology
Luna’s articulation was assessed through informal assessment and clinical
observations to determine what sounds she can or cannot say at this time.
Please Note: these age expectations are based upon research on monolingual
English- speaking children and may not be fully representative of norms for
bilingual, dual language learning children.
Luna’s use of phonological processes was observed. Phonological processes are
patterns of sound errors that typically developing children use to simplify
speech as they learn to talk. Luna exhibited use of the following phonological
processes(patterns) at word-level, sentence-level and in conversation. The
following phonological processes were marked as present during the
evaluation:
1. Final Consonant Deletion: Occurs when consonants at the end of the
word are left off. Example: cheeseàchee, fridgeà fwi. Typical age of
elimination: 3 years
2. Stopping: When a fricative (like ‘v’ or ‘s’) or affricate (ch,j) is
substituted with a stop consonant like ‘p’or ‘d’ Example: treasure à
treadure, thatà dat, brother à bruda. Typical age of elimination: /f/,
/s/ by 3; /v/, /z/ by 3 1/2; sh, ch, j by 4 1/2; th gone by 5.
3. Fronting: Occurs when velar or palatal sounds, like ‘k’ or ‘g’, and ‘sh’,
are substituted with alveolar sounds like ‘t’, ‘d’, and ‘s’. Example:
parkà part. Typical age of elimination: 3.5 years.
4. Cluster Reduction (l-blends): Occurs when a consonant cluster is
reduced to a single consonant. Examples: blueberry à boobewwy.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Recommendations
Typical age of elimination: Gone by 4 years without /s/, gone by 5
years with /s/.
Weak Syllable Deletion: Occurs when the weak syllable of a word is
left off. For example, ‘banana’ becomes ‘nana’. Example: Luigi à wigi.
Typical age of elimination: 4 years.
Deaffrication: Occurs when an affricate, like ‘ch’ or ‘j’ is replaced with
a fricative or stop like ‘sh’ or ‘d’. Example: peachà peash. Typical age
of elimination: 4 years.
Gliding: Occurs when ‘r’ becomes a ‘w’, and ‘l’ becomes a ‘w’ or ‘y’
sound. Examples: let’s à wets, forgot à fowgot, princessà
pwinceth. Typical age of elimination: 6 years.
Vowelization: Occurs when the ‘l’ or ‘er’ sounds are replaced with a
vowel. Examples: hereà heuh, gingerà ginguh. Not developmentally
typical at any age.
Luna was also observed to have a frontal lisp. Her tongue was observed to be
between her front teeth when saying words with ‘s’ which resulted in this
sound being produced as ‘th’.
From my observations and interactions with Luna, she presents with delayed
expressive language skills and a speech sound delay. She presents with ageappropriate receptive language skills as well as appropriate social and play
skills.
Although Luna’s receptive language skills appear to be stronger than her
expressive language skills, there is a strong relationship between receptive and
expressive language. Therefore, delays in one domain would indicate delays
also being present in the other.
It should be noted that much of the data used to interpret Luna’s results are
based on data from monolingual English-speaking children and therefore may
not be fully representative of the skills expected of Luna by this age. Therefore,
these results should be interpreted with caution.
Initial Goals
It is recommended Luna receives services from a registered Speech-Language
Pathologist. It Is also recommended that Luna undergo a full hearing
assessment with a registered audiologist to rule out any possible hearing loss
that could be impacting her language input. It is recommended that Luna has
her speech and language skills re-evaluated in the future to track progress as
well as determine if there are remaining skills that need to be targeted.
1. Given an activity, object, or picture to describe, Luna will improve her
ability to form grammatically correct simple sentences using correct
adverbs, verb forms and pronouns with 80% accuracy across two
consecutive sessions.
2. Luna will use basic concept words including temporal (e.g., first, next last),
spatial (e.g., on, in under, in front, behind, etc.) and quantitative (e.g.,
more, less, few, many, etc.) with 80% accuracy over two consecutive
sessions.
3. Given a picture or object to describe, Luna will produce fricative
consonants /s/, /z/, and /th/ at word, phrase, and sentence level with 80%
accuracy over two consecutive sessions.
It is a pleasure to work with Luna and her family. For questions, I can be contacted directly at 250-5162500 or emilyslp@citadel.ca.
Kind Regards,
Emily Bailey, RSLP
Registered Speech-Language Pathologist #2990