Two Tips for Giving the DEMSS to Profoundly Impacted Kids

Full transcript

Hi, it's Nicole from the NYU Motor Speech Lab, closing out our dynamic assessment chat with two tips on giving the DEMSS to kids who are really profoundly impacted, where speech production is really, really hard for them.

Remember how we said you're allowed to cue the child up to six times? You say the target word, they get it wrong, you can cue them up to six times, and then you have them say it one last time to get the consistency measure. If a kid is having a really hard time, this can be super laborious for them. So don't do six. Do fewer than six. You'll get a feel for where they're at, what their challenges and hot spots are, and you'll know when you're not going to get it and should move on.

The second thing I wanted to share came straight from Dr. Strand herself. The DEMSS has different sections. It starts with simple syllable shapes, like consonant-vowel, "knee." It goes to vowel-consonant, "up." It goes into a reduplicated syllable, like "papa," then to a CVC with the same consonant, like "mom," and eventually up to hard shapes like "banana."

If you have a kid who tires really quickly, for whom speech is really challenging and you can't get a lot out of them, go through and do the first three targets of each syllable section. Don't exhaust each section. You're not going to get a score, but you're going to get so much more information to help with your treatment planning and with identifying CAS. Because sometimes, what will surprise you is that they can't do, let's say, a vowel-consonant like "up," but then you go over to the reduplicated syllable, like "papa," and they have it, no problem.