This text-based course is a transcript of the webinar, “Fundamentals of Dynamic Assessment: Speech/Language Disorders,” presented by Amy M. Glaspey, PhD, CCC-SLP.
>> Dr. Amy Glaspey: Typically my research involves working with dynamic assessment specific to speech sound disorders. I am very focused on speech sounds and how we can measure those. This presentation is a nice opportunity for me to step back and think a little more broadly about what my colleagues are doing, what people across the field are doing, and taking a wider look at dynamic assessment.
I would like to start with how important I think dynamic assessment is and how much it has to offer us as clinicians. I have a chameleon on my title page. I think that it is symbolic of this concept of dynamic assessment, because the clients we see tend to change according to the environment we place them in. Everyone looks a little bit different depending on the angle or the context of what we are seeing. Context is very important and we always want to be thinking about how that shapes our view of the individual that we are seeing.
First, I have disclosures of financial relationships. I am employed by the University of Montana. I did receive an honorarium for this presentation. I do not have any royalties on products or any other relevant financial relationships. As for nonfinancial relationships, I am a member of ASHA and MASHA, the Montana Speech Language and Hearing Association.
I have several outcomes that I hope will be achieved today through this presentation. I hope that you will be able to define the difference between static and dynamic assessments. I hope that we can hone in on dynamic assessment specifically and talk about two broader categories of dynamic assessments. I am going to be talking about some of the methodologies that other people have used. I hope that that gives you the ability to describe some dynamic assessments that have been used, for you to be able to list the benefits of using dynamic assessment, and then hopefully you can explain some ways to do data collection with dynamic assessment and how this might support evidence-based practice.
Introduction
I find assessment very powerful. It is a huge part of what we do. It really drives therapy from the beginning and all the way through the entire process. We have to be careful with our assessments, because everything we are deciding is based off of these assessments that we are collecting. It is our data. We are trying to decide if someone has a disorder to begin with and then how we are going to make decisions in the therapeutic process. It all comes back to assessment.
