The evaluation is done, the report arrives — and it reads like it was written for someone else. Because it was: evaluation reports are largely written for other professionals and insurance reviewers. This guide translates the report into English and tells you which numbers matter.
If you haven't had a formal evaluation yet, Verbalyft's free assessment is a structured starting point you can bring to one; this guide is for decoding the professional report that follows.
The Numbers
Standard Scores
Most formal tests set the average at 100, with a "normal range" of roughly 85 to 115 (one standard deviation each way). A standard score of 78 isn't a grade of 78% — it means your child scored further from the average than about 90% of same-age children on that skill.
Percentiles
A percentile of 16 means your child scored at or above 16% of same-age peers. Percentiles are the most intuitive number in the report — but they exaggerate small differences near the middle and compress big differences at the extremes. A drop from the 50th to 35th percentile is trivial; from the 10th to the 3rd is not.
Age Equivalents ("functioning at a 2;6 level")
Treat these with heavy skepticism — most SLPs do. A 4-year-old scoring like an average 2.5-year-old is not "like a 2.5-year-old"; they're a 4-year-old with a specific skill gap. Age equivalents are statistically weak and emotionally loaded. Don't anchor on them.
The Vocabulary
Receptive language — what your child *understands*. Expressive language — what they can *produce*. The relationship between the two shapes everything: strong understanding with limited expression is a more optimistic profile than delays in both. Look for how the report characterizes each separately.
Articulation / phonology — how sounds are physically produced (articulation) and whether error *patterns* appear (phonology — e.g., dropping all final consonants). Pattern-based errors and motor-based errors are treated differently.
Intelligibility — the percentage of your child's speech that others understand. Rough benchmarks: 50% by age 2, 75% by 3, 90%+ by 4 for unfamiliar listeners.
Severity labels (mild / moderate / severe) — these describe test-score distance from average, not your child's future. A "severe" delay at 3 with strong receptive skills often narrows dramatically with intervention.
MLU (Mean Length of Utterance) — average words (technically morphemes) per utterance, from a natural speech sample. It tracks sentence development: around 2 by age 2, around 4 by age 4.
What to Look at First
1. The receptive/expressive split — it drives prognosis and therapy design more than any single score.
2. Intelligibility percentage — it's the number most connected to daily-life frustration.
3. The recommendations section — frequency and focus of recommended therapy. This is the actionable part.
4. Strengths — good reports list them; they're the foundation therapy builds on, not filler.
Questions to Ask the SLP
If the Results Qualify Your Child for Services
Scores typically need to fall a set distance below average (often 1.5 standard deviations, but it varies by state and district) to qualify for public services. If your child qualifies: services through Early Intervention or an IEP are free. If they *just miss* the cutoff but you see real struggle — you can request reassessment in 6 months, pursue private therapy, and meanwhile run structured home practice. Cutoffs measure eligibility, not need.
If You Disagree with the Results
You're entitled to a second opinion, and for school evaluations you can formally request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at district expense if you disagree. Evaluations are snapshots — a shy child in an unfamiliar room with a stranger may show a fraction of their real ability. Your observations are data too; SLPs know this.
Between Assessments: Watch the Trend
A single assessment is a data point; progress is a slope. Keep your own record between formal reassessments — notes, videos, or a tool that tracks practice performance over time. Verbalyft's progress tracking charts activity accuracy and skill development continuously, which gives you and your SLP trend data between the big formal checkpoints.