Teaching · Speech & Language

Where the speech movements hold, and where they break.

Mark the tasks you gave, how often each speech feature showed up, and how each movement transition went. The summary pulls together the features seen often, the transitions that were smooth, and the tasks still worth giving.

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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 motor speech observation

One record per student and session. 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 session, the tasks given, every planning and execution feature rated by how often it appeared, a transition log with attempts and smooth productions, and a summary that keeps observation separate from diagnosis.
Who it is for
Speech-language pathologists and clinical fellows evaluating children with unclear or highly unintelligible speech.
Format
Browser form used during or after the session. Several saved records per student; printed with the summary or as a blank observation form; CSV with one row per record or the transition table; 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.
puhtuhkuhmoving from one sound to the next
Drawn for this page. Many children can say each sound alone; the trouble shows in the move from one to the next.

How to use it

  1. Start a record with the student’s initials or a code and the date.
  2. Mark the tasks you gave and the child’s effort.
  3. For each feature, mark whether it was not seen, seen sometimes or seen often.
  4. Log the transitions you tried, with attempts, smooth productions and what helped.
  5. Read the summary and plan any missing tasks, including the oral mechanism examination.

Start an observation

What the observation is for

Planning and execution

Motor speech problems can come from planning and sequencing movements, as in childhood apraxia of speech, or from executing them, as in dysarthria, which brings weakness, slowness or reduced coordination. Some children show both. Tasks that repeat the same word, lengthen words and change syllables quickly are where planning problems tend to show.

The three highlighted features

A 2007 ASHA technical report on childhood apraxia of speech named three features with some consensus at the time: inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated syllables or words; lengthened and disrupted transitions between sounds and syllables; and inappropriate prosody, especially in lexical or phrasal stress. Seeing them is a reason to look closer, not a diagnosis.

What this form is not

It does not diagnose apraxia or dysarthria and gives no scores or rates against norms. A diagnosis comes from a full evaluation and clinical judgment, often over more than one session.

Sources

  1. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2007). Childhood Apraxia of Speech [Technical Report].
  2. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Practice Portal: Childhood Apraxia of Speech.
  3. Strand, E. A., McCauley, R. J., Weigand, S. D., Stoeckel, R. E., and Baas, B. S. (2013). A motor speech assessment for children with severe speech disorders: reliability and validity evidence. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56(2), 505 to 520.
  4. Duffy, J. R. Motor Speech Disorders: Substrates, Differential Diagnosis, and Management, 4th edition (2020).

The example child and session are made up. The record organizes observations; it does not diagnose a motor speech disorder. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.