What's driving you? A template which underpins the assessment of preschool children by speech and language therapists

This paper presents a diagrammatic representation of features which underpin the initial assessment of preschool children newly referred to speech and language therapy. This model forms part of the results of a project whose overall aim was to make explicit the way in which expert speech and language therapists consider preschool children for intervention. Within a mainly qualitative methodology, data were collected by use of semistructured interviews, case analyses and a focus group workshop. The notational tool used for analysis, systemic grammar networks, is described and used to represent an assessment paradigm. The model is presented as a potential support for less experienced therapists or as a stimulus to reflection in more experienced therapists.