Speech Screening

Abstract

During the last decade, the speech and hearing profession has expanded its focus to include all aspects of communication and communication disorders, adding language to the traditional areas of articulation, voice, and fluency disorders. The change in professional focus has been reflected in changes in the case loads of many speech-language pathologists in the schools. There has been an increase in the number of children with language disorders enrolled in school speech programs and a decrease in the service provided to children with other communication disorders, especially articulation disorders. A report of the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA, 1961) showed that 80 percent of the speech caseload in the schools dealt with articulation disorders, with the remaining 20 percent being voice, rhythm, and problems associated with organic conditions. Prior to 1970, the caseload in the Montgomery County (Pennsylvania) School . System was 13 percent language disorders. During the 1971 to 1972 and 1973 to 1974 school years however, the language disorders in the caseload had increased to 29 percent and 38.6 percent, respectively (DesRoches, 1976). Blanchard and Nober (1978) reported a significant increase in the enrollment of language-disordered children in the Massachusetts school speech programs, accompanied by a significant decrease in the number of articulation cases served since the implementation of federal and state legislation regarding the handicapped in the mid-1970s. This trend may have resulted from the belief that language development and language disorders are of greater importance to a child's overall development than speech and speech disorders. In order to fully meet the communication needs of the children in the schools it is important to view speech disorders as equally as important as language and to understand the relationship between the two. This distinction is essential when considering screening programs in the schools. Premack (1970) describes language as having a dual structure along two distinct parameters —symbol modes and linguistic rules. The linguistic rules include semantic rules for the meanings of words and word combinations, syntactic rules for combining words into sentences of varying structural types, and, adding to his position, pragmatic rules for using those sentences and meanings to communicate. The symbol modes are viewed as the response mode, including writing, gesture and, the most efficient form,