February 13, 2023 · 1:29 · Target selection · Assessment · DTTC
Picking Target Words From the DEMSS
For more severely impacted kids, the lab starts with the DEMSS, pulling target words straight from its syllable-shape sections that the child had a hard time with during the assessment.
Full transcript
Good morning. Nicole coming in from the NYU Motor Speech Lab with your Monday tidbit. I think over the next couple of weeks I'm going to talk about picking target words for your DTTC treatment sessions, which can be challenging. For some of the kids who have more language and a lot more output, it is challenging for our team here as well.
Today, I want to talk about the kids who are more severely impacted. So where do you start with your target words? I can tell you what we do and what's super helpful.
We always do a DEMSS before we start treatment, just to verify that this child definitely has CAS. The DEMSS, or the Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skills, if you haven't heard of it, was developed by Dr. Edythe Strand. It's the only dynamic assessment on the market right now, and it's so good.
The DEMSS looks at different syllable shapes. The first section of the DEMSS is CV, then it's VC, then it's CVC. So what we have done, which is super helpful, is pull words directly from the DEMSS that we know are important, and that we noticed the child was having a hard time with during the assessment. For one of our kids right now, we have "me," "on," and "mine" as target words.
More to come.
