Page 10 - Literacy Based Speech Language Therapy Sample 210216

Assessing What to Work on, Choosing Goals, and Taking Data

Better Speech Therapy Data Collection

Why does data tracking make us so nervous? We asked
fellow SLPs, and it boils down to two main reasons:

Getting it Done: Data tracking is hard because you are

trying to do it in real time. Your brain is going in many
directions, and it’s a lot of work.

Taking GOOD Data: We need speech therapy data

collection to be continual to make sure we can measure
the child’s progress. What does good data tracking look
like? It has to be measurable. This sounds easy, but we all know that many factors contribute to the

challenges of data-keeping: students’ behavior, level of cuing, chosen activity, etc.

Here are four ways to improve your data collection and a special focus taking data on how well a
student follows directions. We then conclude this section by showing how to evaluate your therapy
materials to make sur that they are addressing the goals of your students and clients.

1. Let students take their own data

Students of any age can mark their own progress. During articulation work, they can put a
checkmark, star, or sticker in a box. Language therapy groups can mark if they answer a question,
count the words in their utterances, or count parts of sentences that are in the right sequence. Be
really savvy about it and have their data counting be in groups of 10 so that you can get percentages

immediately. Here are some examples from articulation groups.

 Students put a check on a piece of paper when they say a sound as we go around the table.
 Students find /s/, /r/, and /l/sounds in the book we just read. They say the words and give
themselves a check.
 Students use iconic phonology pages with 10 boxes under each picture and make their own
checks.
 Students use a counter to track their number of repetitions per word while I track the level
of cuing.

2. Make it explicit

Taking data should not be a secret affair. First, your students should know his goals. Second, he
should know that our tally marks represent when he "finds his sound" or "answers a question"

correctly. This makes progress happen faster! It is feedback for our students.

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