SLP

About The Indicator/Screener

The Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) in New Mexico and Washington Elementary School District (WESD) in Arizona began working together in 2012 on a collaborative approach to serving and evaluating students. Both districts utilize central teams of Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) to provide Bilingual and English, initial and triennial IDEA evaluations across their districts.  The two districts have jointly worked on this comprehensive screening tool, “The Indicator,” to support the evaluation and Response to Intervention process. This tool will provide an overview of the team design to screen articulation, language, voice and fluency in both English and Spanish.

The Albuquerque Public Schools is the 28th largest urban school district in the country, serving 90,000 students in 144 educational facilities for students ages 2 through 22. The Washington Elementary School District (WESD), Phoenix, the largest elementary school district in Arizona, is a center-city public school district with 32 school sites serving grades preschool to 8th.

For years both districts have been limited to the screening tools available.  The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Fifth Edition (CELF-5) Screening Test, the Preschool Language Scales, Fifth Edition (PLS-5) Screening Test, the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning, Fourth Edition (DIAL-4) screener or various other free screening tools available from Pinterest or Teachers Paying Teachers were utilized.  Each tool had its own limitations or faults.  The lead SLPs and SLP evaluators were frustrated with the limited information these tools provided.  The challenge was to develop a meaningful, practical, comprehensive screening tool to identify strengths and weaknesses to help provide meaningful interventions or possibly allow evaluators an insight into areas in need of additional evaluation.  “The Indicator” is a comprehensive screening tool to help with reviewing and making decisions for each student with a suspected need for interventions and/or further evaluation.

This day and age many school-based SLPs are finding themselves having to be proactive in the intervention process known as Response to Intervention.  Many SLPs have to advocate for what students need in terms of appropriate intervention.  This tool will also allow the dynamic process to evolve. Most importantly, the course of development is alterable through the provision of early intervention.

“The Indicator” can be administered in both English and Spanish, the most common two languages in the Southwest. This tool will screen articulation, language, voice, and fluency.  Additionally, the language portion has three grade level tools, Kindergarten-2nd grade, 3rd-5th grade and 6th -8th grade.  APS rarely sees referrals made for students at the high school level.