When it comes to assessment of social pragmatic abilities, the majority of SLP’s often worry about their school age students. Yet social-emotional disturbances and behavioral abnormalities in preschool children (<5 years of age) are more common than you think.
Egger & Angold (2006) found that “despite the relative lack of research on preschool psychopathology compared with studies of the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders in older children, the current evidence now shows quite convincingly that the rates of the common child psychiatric disorders and the patterns of comorbidity among them in preschoolers are similar to those seen in later childhood. (p. 313)”
What that means is that when it comes to preschool children, SLPs and caregivers need to know the difference between atypical/immature patterns of socialization and typical behaviors for that age in order to determine whether the preschool child is presenting with social pragmatic skills deficits. This is why I created my “Social Pragmatic Deficits Checklist for Preschool Children 3:00-5:11 years of age”, which assists speech language pathologists with identifying and screening social pragmatic language weaknesses in preschool children 3:0-5:11 years of age, in order to determine whether they may require assessment services. The form should be given to both preschool teacher and caregivers to ensure that the weaknesses are observed consistently across all settings / people.
Checklist Categories:
- Language Processing
- Verbal Expression
- Play Skills
- Problem Solving
- Behavior
- Social Pragmatic Language
- Executive Function Skills
Reference:
Egger, H., & Angold, A. (2006). Common emotional and behavioral disorders in preschool children: Presentation, nosology and epidemiology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 313–337.
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I would like to use this with my middle school students with autism.
I would love this because I think it will help me with the students I’m on the fence about. It will also be great to share with parents.
Fantastic! Thank you!
Oops forgot to tell you that I need it for my 3, 4, and 5 year old pre-k students that come in with medical diagnoses of autism, developmental delays, etc… We have a lot of preschoolers coming into our public schools having already seen a developmental specialist (yea! That’s progress!) and have specific diagnoses.