Writing about Articulation in a Report

In writing reports, it is very important for the speech and language pathologist to be consistent and accurate in writing the phonemes that the student is having difficulty with.  These should be written using professional writing with any sounds or sound combinations that a family might not understand defined. Writing about articulation in reports can be simple if you follow these strategies.

Sounds should be put in slashes /s/ not bolded or capitalized.

Refer to the blog on treatment techniques: Rakovic: Articulation Therapy resources

How to write about an articulation standardized test

If you have done a standardized test for evaluation at the beginning or the end of treatment you must give a description of the test. It is also easier to read a table of sounds than it is to read them embedded into a paragraph.

Here are some examples of write-ups of articulation tests, note these are examples and may have more information than you need for the progress report but it will give you an idea of the organization and how to describe a test.

The below links to Pearson’s example of their report write-up for Goldman-Fristoe and the KLPA

Pearson’s Goldman Fristoe and the KLPA

This is an example that has a write-up of some early communicators. I uploaded the pdf as sometimes the links expire.

EXAMPLEPreschool Speech-Language Assessment (1)-1ey8utp

This is a great resource that has over 90 descriptions of common speech and language tests.

90 speech therapy test descriptions

How to write about the Goldman Fristoe Articulation Test

Here is another way to write the Goldman Fristoe so that you are remaining clinical but also giving the family information.

Articulation: The Goldman Fristoe Test of Articulation-2 (GFTA-2) is designed to provide a systematic means of assessing an individual’s articulation in single words. Descriptive information about the individual’s articulation skills is obtained through three subtests: Sound-in-words, Sound-in-syllables, and Stimulability. Student’s errors are listed below with error sound followed by target sound:

/n/ for /ing/(final position) Example: ‘rin’ for ‘ring’

/s/ for /sh/ (all positions) Example: ‘fising’ for ‘fishing’

/ts/ for /ch/ (final, medial) Example: ‘watses’ for ‘watches’ * inconsistent

/w/ for /r/ (all positions) Example: ‘wabbit’ for ‘rabbit’

/dz/ for /j/ (final position) Example: ‘orandz’ for ‘orange’

/f/ for /th/ voiceless (all positions) Example: ‘fum’ for ‘thumb’

/d/ for /th/ voiced (all positions) Example: ‘dis’ for ‘this’

/b/ for /v/ (initial) Example: ‘bacuum’ for ‘vacuum’

Here is another way:

During the evaluation, the following sounds were marked in error and are considered delayed based on CHILD’s age at testing:

Initial: f, g, v, ch, sp, st, sk, sw, sn, gl, fl, gr, sm, sl, th
Medial: f, g, v, sh, s, j, z, er, t
Final: k, g, z, th
The following phonological processes were marked as present during the evaluation and are considered delayed based on CHILD’s age at testing:

Initial Consonant Deletion: Occurs when the intial consonant in a word is left off.
Final Consonant Deletion: Occurs when the final consonant in a word is left off.
Weak Syllable Deletion: Occurs when the weak syllable of a word is left off.
Cluster Reduction—s: Occurs when an /s/ consonant cluster is reduced to a single consonant.
Cluster Reduction: Occurs when a consonant cluster is reduced to a single consonant.
It is recommended that CHILD receive instruction and practice to correct production of the following speech sounds and to decrease the phonological processes found in her speech:

f, g, v, ch, sp, st, sk, sw, sn, gl, fl, gr, sm, sl, th, sh, s, j, z, er, k

How to write about the Entire World of R Advanced Screening

Here is some great information about the Entire World of R Advanced Screening for those that are using that.

Entire World of R resources

This is similar but in a larger format.

http://www.scsha.com/assets/docs/Convention2014/Handouts/ristuccia%20session%202%20and%207.pdf

Here is another example of how to put it into a table so that the information might not be overwhelming.

Some great forms for articulation

Here is a presentation that has some of these listed Articulation best practices

Here is the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association in their practice protocol lists them.

American Speech Language and Hearing Association: articulation

Here is another reference that comes from another university as a template for their county’s reports.

county-wide-template-21 (2)

R articulation form for Entire World of R

Entire World of R chart of results

How to write about IPA in a word document

In writing IPA in word there is a very easy way to do this. Here is a youtube video on it.

Great tool for writing the phonetic alphabet

Click above for a great tool to write the phonetic alphabet.

There are some that are having difficulty in writing articulation results. Think about what helps you as a therapist. You want to be able to see what sounds are in error, is that sound in error in all positions, which sounds should be expected at that child’s age.  You want to know if there are any omissions. You want to know what may be impacting the student’s speech the most. Having these in a table makes it easier to read this information as opposed to having it in a paragraph.  Here is one example of an easy table. It has the sound, the way the student says it and what is the expected age for the sound.

Example of a chart for articulation write-up

This is an example provided by Courtney.  You can see that this makes it easier for the parent to understand what you are hearing. You would do this for each position that the student was not able to produce the sound.

Initial Position

How to write about the Arizona Test of Articulation 4

The Arizona Test of Articulation 4  can be scored online.  Be careful when you are scoring it as the number of sounds is different from the test item ( one item may have several sounds that they are looking for). This is listed on the test form. WPS publishing website

I have made a chart for this. Click on the title to download a word document.  I have also copied the table here.

Arizona Table for Articulation Test-ws3dco

Total possible score:

Total error:

Word Articulation Total:

Total possible score:

Total error:

Sentence Articulation Total:

Related blogs:

• What Does Articulation Therapy Look Like In the Schools
• Articulation: Making Drill Work Fun
• The Clinicial Assessment of Articulation and Phonology
• Auditory Bombardment in Articulation Therapy

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