Insurance Coverage - Quantitative Scoring

January 2, 2007

I've got a question as to insurance coverage. Below is a portion of my

insurance company's policy. It's a bit long, but my concern is the wording of

the policy in terms of defining a condition as requiring treatment if the scores

fall a certain # of standard deviations from " normal " . I'm not sure how many

standard deviations her scores fall below " normal " , but am looking into it.

------------------------------------------------------------

Speech and language impairments are classified according to severity:

Mild: less than one standard deviation from normal

Moderate: one or two standard deviations from normal

Severe: more than two standard deviations from normal

An individual may be diagnosed with a speech or language disorder if the

performance measure falls 1.5 deviations from the mean on several standardized

tests. For children through age eight, proformance of 1.5 is the deviation

measure used. .......Total test scores (not subtest scores or cluster scores)

must fall at least two standard deviations below the mean in order to meet state

eligibility criteria for articulation and language disabilities; the reporting

of test scores in standard deviation units is required for eligibility

decisions. It is acceptable to report percentile ranks and other standard

scores in addition to standard deviations units. It is not acceptable to use or

report age-equivalent scores (McCauley & Swisher, 1984)

My daughter scored the following scores in her SLP's evaluation:

- Peabody Picture Vacabulary Test III - 90

- Expressive Vocabulary Test - 101

- Comprehensive Assessment of spoken Language - Basic Concepts - 89

- Goldman-Friscoe Test of Articulation-2: had a " number of articulaton errors

in all positions of the words incluiding: tw/tr, d/t, z/s, b/p, gr/qu, k/kj,

ts/ch, n/ngs/sh, t/ch, d/th, s/th, d/dg, sw/dr, f/fr, kw/kr, d/st, w/r, z/g.

Another concern was the noted vowel distortions throughout the

sample......(discussion of vowel errors)...Many of th vowel errors appear to be

related to issues with tongue position and jaw grading

None of the letters addressed such a quantitative judgement. My concern is that

my insurance company may try to disapprove based on a few scores even though

there are so many other reasons to approve. Thanks for reading.

Jeff

January 2, 2007

slaw does an excellent job of teaching you how to graph a bell

curve to show test results with standard deviations. Chapter 10

of " From Emotions to Advocacy " .

You'll need to get the standard deviation and mean numbers of the

tests in order to get a handle on what the numbers really mean.

>

> I've got a question as to insurance coverage. Below is a portion

of my insurance company's policy. It's a bit long, but my concern is

the wording of the policy in terms of defining a condition as

requiring treatment if the scores fall a certain # of standard

deviations from " normal " . I'm not sure how many standard deviations

her scores fall below " normal " , but am looking into it.

> ------------------------------------------------------------

> Speech and language impairments are classified according to

severity:

>

> Mild: less than one standard deviation from normal

> Moderate: one or two standard deviations from normal

> Severe: more than two standard deviations from normal

>

> An individual may be diagnosed with a speech or language disorder

if the performance measure falls 1.5 deviations from the mean on

several standardized tests. For children through age eight,

proformance of 1.5 is the deviation measure used. .......Total test

scores (not subtest scores or cluster scores) must fall at least two

standard deviations below the mean in order to meet state eligibility

criteria for articulation and language disabilities; the reporting of

test scores in standard deviation units is required for eligibility

decisions. It is acceptable to report percentile ranks and other

standard scores in addition to standard deviations units. It is not

acceptable to use or report age-equivalent scores (McCauley &

Swisher, 1984)

>

> My daughter scored the following scores in her SLP's evaluation:

>

> - Peabody Picture Vacabulary Test III - 90

> - Expressive Vocabulary Test - 101

> - Comprehensive Assessment of spoken Language - Basic Concepts - 89

> - Goldman-Friscoe Test of Articulation-2: had a " number of

articulaton errors in all positions of the words incluiding: tw/tr,

d/t, z/s, b/p, gr/qu, k/kj, ts/ch, n/ngs/sh, t/ch, d/th, s/th, d/dg,

sw/dr, f/fr, kw/kr, d/st, w/r, z/g. Another concern was the noted

vowel distortions throughout the sample......(discussion of vowel

errors)...Many of th vowel errors appear to be related to issues with

tongue position and jaw grading

>

> None of the letters addressed such a quantitative judgement. My

concern is that my insurance company may try to disapprove based on a

few scores even though there are so many other reasons to approve.

Thanks for reading.

>

> Jeff

>

January 3, 2007