FREE Screenings

Did you know that FREE speech and hearing screenings are available at Morton Plant Mease Health Care's Clearwater and Palm Harbor outpatient rehabilitation centers?

If you're concerned about your child's speech/language development, consider scheduling a free screening. A trained therapist will briefly assess your child's language skills, articulation, voice quality and hearing ability. Written results and recommendations are then provided to you and your pediatrician. Screenings last approximately 30 minutes. Available only by appointment.

Consider these developmental milestones to help you determine if a screening is warranted:

By 12 months:

• imitates familiar words and sounds
• understands simple directions
• recognizes names

By 24 months:

• sentence length is two to three words
• possesses speaking vocabulary of 50 words
• refers to self by name
• understands simple questions
• identifies body parts
• comprehends 300 words
  

By 36 months:

• can produce "m, n, p, b, t, d, ng, f, h and y" sounds
• sentence length of three to four words
• possesses 1000 word speaking vocabulary
• knows last name, gender, street address and portions of nursery rhymes
• understands yesterday, summer, lunchtime and tonight time concepts

To schedule a screening at our Clearwater location, call (727) 461-8847. For our Palm Harbor location, call (727) 772-2200.

For an interactive developmental checklist and a printable summary, visit the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.