Speech Assessment of Children's Home Language(s) (SACHL)

In partnership with families and interpreters, SLPs determine whether children are experiencing speech difficulties in all the languages that they speak and decide together whether multilingual children would benefit from intervention.

By implementing the SACHL, it is envisaged that: (a) SLPs will be equipped with decision-making skills for considering the difference between children who are typical language learners and children who have speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN), particularly speech sound disorder (SSD) and (b) that multilingual children may be less likely to be under- or over-diagnosed and more likely to receive appropriate communication support.

Part 1: Multilingual Preparation

Step 1. Consider your own cultural responsivity and linguistic knowledge.

Step 2. Learn about the child’s home language(s) and dialect(s) and make a plan for transcription.

Step 3. Select a single word speech assessment tool in each language.

Step 4. Collaborate with an assessment partner (e.g., family member, interpreter) who speaks the child’s home language who can assist in:

1. Recording the assessment target words (so the SLP can determine if the child matches the adult target)
2. Eliciting a single word and connected speech sample in the home language with the child
3. Identifying which home language sounds and words are difficult for the child to produce
4. Identifying cross-linguistic transfer during the English speech assessment

Part 2: Multilingual Assessment

Step 5. Conduct case history, language history profiles, language, hearing and oro-motor assessment.

Step 6. Society language (e.g., English) speech assessment: administer the assessment and check whether the child used non-shared consonants from the home language.

Step 7. Home language speech assessment: Ask the assessment partner to administer the child’s home language speech assessment and check whether the assessment partner heard any consonant mismatches.

Part 3: Multilingual Analysis

Step 8. Transcribe: Compare the child’s productions to the target adult’s productions in the home language to help decide if they are correct. Use recordings of the child’s and adult’s speech to finalise your transcriptions.

Step 9. Analyse the speech samples in each language to form a description of the child’s entire phonological repertoire.

1. Consider reasons for each of the child’s mismatches.
2. Note similarities and differences in the child’s productions across languages.
3. Use a converging evidence approach and criterion-referenced measures across languages for differential diagnosis.

Step 10. Share assessment findings with the family (strengths and concerns) and plan next steps.

Reprinted with permission from Margetson and McLeod (2026)

Coming soon: SACHL resources for different languages. Contact Dr Kate Margetson (kmargetson@csu.edu.au) if you would like to contribute to creating these in the language(s) that you speak.