SLP Terms and Acronyms: Understanding Speech-Language Evaluation and Progress Reports

SLP Terms and Acronyms: 

Understanding Speech-Language Evaluation and Progress Reports

Evaluation and progress reports can be tough to understand if the terms used to describe speech, language, feeding, and social delays, disorders, and concerns are unfamiliar to the reader.  Here is a list of my most commonly used terms in these reports as a pediatric SLP to help you understand the nature of the pathology and its treatment. 

AAC: stands for Augmentative and Alternative Communication.  Candidates for AAC include non-verbal children and individuals, those with degenerative diseases, and for aiding or replacing spoken language.  AAC can be low-tech like communication boards and PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) or high-tech using a specialized device or program on an iPad.

Alveolar ridge: is the bumpy area of the hard palate behind the front teeth.  The alveolar ridge is often referenced in articulation therapy when teaching tongue tip placement for /d, l, n, s, t, z/.

Apraxia or CAS: Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder which occurs when the brain cannot coordinate the movements necessary to produce consistent articulation of speech sounds

Expressive language: using words (or AAC) to communicate needs, wants, ideas, and feelings.  This also refers to how well one is able to follow the rules of language (like including past tense endings on verbs, plurals, put words in order to make a complete sentence.)

Oral hypersensitivity: can occur when a child has difficulty tolerating, chewing, or swallowing certain textures, flavors, or temperatures.

Phoneme: means sound.  When you see slash marks around a letter (like /s/) it means I am talking about the phoneme /s/ sound (actually sounds like /ess/).   For example /th/ is really one phoneme, although it is two letters.

Phonological process:  is a pattern of errors that children produce to simplify language as they are learning.  Some patterns are typical (like reduplication which happens when a young child says “baba” for “bottle”) and then fade as a child’s speech develops.   When processes do not resolve on their own, intervention may be necessary to help the child catch up with peers. 

Receptive language: means understanding others and following directions

Speech: means verbal communication.   Articulation, voice, and fluency/stuttering therapy fall under this category.

SLP:  Speech-Language Pathologist, one who provides treatment intervention for a variety of speech, language, feeding/swallowing, voice, fluency, and social therapy.

Keep in mind that these are the terms that come up most often for me, this is not an exhaustive list.  There are countless others.  If you’re unsure or unfamiliar with any of these terms as they pertain to your child, I encourage you to ask what it means.  You’re welcome to leave your question in the comment area of this post if you’re unable or uncomfortable asking your SLP.