What Do They Do a a County Speech Evaluation

The initial evaluation conducted through EI is a "developmental assessment" to determine what additional evaluations are needed. It sounds like the developmental evaluator feels that there is a need for a comprehensive language evaluation. EI is funded by through the Department of Health in each county.

Typical EI speech evals:
- parent interview
- clinical observation
- expressive language evaluation (what can she say)
- receptive language evaluation (what does she understand)
- articulation (what does she "sound like" what she talks)

This is ALL dependent on how old she is, but my guess is that your daughter is 2-ish, so they will do a lot of "labeling" tasks with her and "point to" and "direction-following".

Good luck!

I love the answer that the 1st poster gave! Might I add, if you can have her evaluated by a specialist to see if the county/ early intervention adds up the same. In my sons experience they were not correct so from one Momma to another I would love to share that bit of advice :) One other statement...be sure to rule out hearing loss. Even a mild hearing loss can cause a child to be behind in speech and most later in life children are misdiagnosed. Good luck!

I see you're from Ohio. When I needed speech checked out I went to my local school district and requested a Multifaceted Evaluation (MFE). I had already had a hearing test done to rule out any hearing issue. They do this to rule out any other deficiencies. My son was initially diagnosed with speech delay and expressive and receptive language disorder. He then was able to get speech therapy through the school district. School districts are responsible for kids age 3 -21. I even had my 20 year old evaluated when he was having problems in college. Also what is nice it does not cost you anything to receive this from the school. Also more schools are having preschool programs that have kids with these type of needs. My son started in my school district at age 3 and is still in the district at age 13. I am also in a suburban school district. I choose not to list my city with my domain name. If you want to go private there is the Cleveland Speech and hearing which I did do for a year with my son when he was 4 in addition to school. It was very helpful. I also had him evaluated by a ped neurologist who specialized with kids like this and she helped with advice. There are even speech/language camps available during the summer. Depends on the age of your child. Also there is a great preschool in Middleburg Hts that has 2 or 3 speech patholgists on hand and they also have a pre-k program. Middleburg Early Education Center is there name if I remember. They are located on Pearl in a church near Bagley and Pearl.

The first speech assessment my son had was fun for him. The person doing it had him looking at a photo album full of real photos. Not cartoon or drawn things. The book probably had a hundred photos. Real police cars, fire trucks, baseballs, people etc. simple things like balls and more complex words also. It doesn't hurt in any way and your child won't be made to feel bad.