Teaching · Speech & Language

Write down what the student says, then look at how they say it.

Have the student describe a picture or retell a story, write each utterance down and mark nine features from pronouns to joining ideas. The organizer works out words per utterance from your counts and lists what was not heard, with the checks to make before reading too much into a short sample.

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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Speech & Language toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

The screening organizer

One screening per student. Use initials or a code, never a name. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Speech & Language$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with: For each student, the features seen, inconsistent and not seen, the sample with its counts and words per utterance, error patterns and the outcome, with a summary that groups them and flags what to check.
Who it is for: Speech-language pathologists and early childhood and special education teachers screening spoken language from preschool to middle school.
Format: Browser organizer. Several saved records; printed with the summary or as a blank paper form; CSV with one row per student; export and import a file.
Access: $12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Speech & Language toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives: The Speech & Language space in Caveat Teaching.
Support: Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

Drawn for this page. Counting the words in each thing a student says turns a picture description into something you can compare with the same student later.

How to use it

Start a record with the student’s initials or a code, and note the task and the language of the sample.
Have the student describe a picture, retell a short story or talk about something they like.
Write each utterance on its own line, then count the utterances and the words.
Mark each feature seen, inconsistent, not seen or no chance to see, and tick the patterns you noticed.
Choose the outcome and, for monitoring, a date to screen again.

Start a screening

What the screening is for

Counts without norms

Words per utterance is a simple, useful number for watching one student over time. This page applies no norms to it; published reference values depend on how a sample is collected and counted, and on the student’s language background. A full evaluation uses a longer sample and established procedures.

Difference, not disorder

Grammar that differs from school English can come from a dialect or from learning English as another language. Neither is a disorder. Compare with how the student talks in their home language and community, and screen in that language where you can.

What happens next

A screening only decides whether to look closer. A referral goes to the team, which decides whether to evaluate, with the parent’s written consent. Records use a code, never a name, and stay in this browser.

Sources

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Practice Portal: Spoken Language Disorders; and Multilingual Service Delivery in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (asha.org/practice-portal).
Brown, R. (1973). A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (mean length of utterance).
Miller, J. F., Andriacchi, K., and Nockerts, A. (2019). Assessing Language Production Using SALT Software (3rd ed.). Middleton, WI: SALT Software, on language sampling.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act regulations, 34 CFR 300.300(a) (consent for initial evaluation) and 300.304(c)(1) (assessment in the child’s native language).
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 34 CFR Part 99.

The example student is made up. The screening applies no norms, gives no standard score, does not diagnose a language disorder and does not decide eligibility. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.