Assessment Through Interview

Our students come from a variety of cultural, language, and educational backgrounds. To provide ethical and effective services, we must start with an understanding of the student’s background. Especially when creating appropriate pragmatic language goals, it is imperative that we ensure goals align with the individual’s personal goals and that pragmatic language goals do not cause harm (e.g., goals that encourage masking). We can use student interviews to determine areas in the student’s everyday life where pragmatic language differences are impacting their ability to effectively reach their goals.

During this interview, we can also learn more about their past experiences with speech and language therapy. Some students may wish to continue therapy methods they found to be beneficial for them in previous settings, while others may have had negative experiences that we must be sensitive to and learn from. Taking into consideration our students’ past therapy experiences helps to ensure that our current approaches are supportive and align with ethical and individualized instruction.

Pragmatic language goals can consider the student’s current environment as well as future long-term plans. We want to support our students to be successful in their daily lives, and ensure that we build the foundation for success in their future educational, vocational, and personal goals.

Assessment Through Questionnaire

Questionnaires can help us to further evaluate a student's needs in specific areas. Some students may come into their first session with a strong understanding of the areas they wish to target, while others may not know where to start. Using questionnaires can initiate conversation to pinpoint pragmatic areas that may be challenging or of interest to the student. Questionnaires can also help to explore underlying areas of need to ensure supports target them directly.

Positive outcomes of therapy may include:

• Increased confidence in use of strategies to support language in a variety of contexts
• Increased knowledge about their own communication style and needs
• Increased confidence in self advocating for their communication style and needs.