Your FREE SLP Praxis 5331 Flashcards 2026 – 100+ Cards

ASHA's nine areas of clinical service competence: speech sound production, fluency, voice and resonance, language, social communication, cognition, AAC, hearing, and feeding/swallowing.

The range of professional activities ASHA defines for an SLP — assessment, intervention, counseling, and prevention across the lifespan.

Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology — ASHA's national credential requiring a master's degree, Clinical Fellowship, and a passing Praxis 5331 score (162).

A mentored post-graduate period of at least 36 weeks / 1,260 hours required before the CCC-SLP is awarded.

ASHA's binding rules of professional conduct, built on principles of welfare of persons served, competence, integrity in public statements, and responsibility to the profession.

Clinical decisions that integrate the best external research evidence, clinician expertise, and the client's values and preferences.

A communication difference is a typical variation for a client's language or dialect (not pathology); a disorder is impaired relative to one's own community.

The three components of language: form (syntax, morphology, phonology), content (semantics/meaning), and use (pragmatics).

The social use of language — turn-taking, topic maintenance, eye contact, and adjusting language to the listener and situation.

The rule-governed sound system of a language — how sounds pattern and combine — distinct from the motor act of articulation.

The study of morphemes, the smallest units of meaning (e.g., plural -s, past-tense -ed, prefixes and suffixes).

The meaning of words and sentences — vocabulary, word relationships, and figurative language.

The rules for ordering and combining words into grammatical phrases and sentences.

Sharing focus on an object or event with another person — an early social-communication milestone foundational to language.

The average number of morphemes per utterance in a language sample — an index of expressive language development.

The big-nine area covering attention, memory, problem solving, and executive function — most associated with TBI and dementia.

The central ethical duty to hold the client's welfare paramount and provide services without discrimination.

An ethics rule: a task may be IN the SLP scope (e.g., dysphagia) yet still require training, mentoring, and supervised experience before independent practice.

An ethics rule: never claim a credential (like CCC-SLP) you don't yet hold; a clinical fellow may not use CCC-SLP until ASHA awards it.

When tasks are delegated to an SLP assistant, the supervising certified SLP retains responsibility for the client's welfare.

Protected client information is released only with appropriate authorization or a legitimate professional need.

An arrangement (e.g., a kickback for steering clients to a product) that could compromise client-centered judgment; the Code requires avoiding it.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — the federal law governing special-education services, including school-based SLP services and IEPs.

HIPAA protects health information (clinical settings); FERPA protects education records (school settings). Both govern client privacy.

Adapting assessment and intervention to a client's language and culture, and distinguishing a difference from a disorder.

Educating and supporting clients/families about the nature and management of a communication or swallowing disorder — within scope; psychotherapy is not.

Whether an assessment measures what it claims to measure.

Whether an assessment yields consistent results across time, items, or raters.

An SLP role: promoting communication/swallowing health and preventing disorders (e.g., vocal hygiene education, hearing conservation).

Working as a team with families, teachers, physicians, and other providers to coordinate client care.

A quick pass/refer check to decide whether a full evaluation is warranted — it does NOT diagnose.

The background information (medical, developmental, educational, family) gathered at the start of an evaluation to guide assessment.

An assessment that compares a client to a normative sample (percentiles, standard scores) to identify whether a disorder exists.

An assessment measuring performance against a defined skill/criterion to identify what specifically to target in therapy.

A test–teach–retest approach measuring how well a client learns with support; reduces cultural/linguistic bias.

A recording of spontaneous, real language use analyzed for structures, MLU, and pragmatics.

A score expressing a client's performance relative to the mean of a norm group (commonly mean 100, SD 15).

Difficulty physically producing individual speech sounds — motor-based errors such as a distorted /r/ or /s/.

A rule-based speech sound disorder in which whole classes of sounds are simplified by predictable error patterns.

A phonological process in which back sounds (velars) are replaced by front sounds, e.g., 'key' → 'tea'. Typically resolves by ~3½ years.

A phonological process in which fricatives/affricates become stops, e.g., 'sun' → 'tun'.

A phonological process in which a consonant cluster loses a sound, e.g., 'spot' → 'pot'. Typically resolves by ~4 years.

A phonological process in which the ending consonant is omitted, e.g., 'cat' → 'ca'.

A phonological process in which liquids (/l/, /r/) become glides (/w/, /j/), e.g., 'rabbit' → 'wabbit'.

The degree to which a client can correctly produce a target sound when given a model and cues; a prognostic indicator.

An acquired language disorder, usually from a left-hemisphere stroke, affecting speaking, understanding, reading, and/or writing.

A nonfluent (expressive) aphasia: effortful, telegraphic speech with relatively preserved comprehension and good awareness; poor repetition.

A fluent (receptive) aphasia: well-articulated but meaningless speech with paraphasias/neologisms, poor comprehension, and poor awareness.

A fluent aphasia with good comprehension but disproportionately poor repetition, classically from arcuate fasciculus damage.

A severe aphasia impairing all language modalities — nonfluent output, poor comprehension, and poor repetition — from a large left-hemisphere lesion.

A fluent aphasia with intact comprehension and repetition but prominent word-finding difficulty and circumlocution.

A nonfluent aphasia with strikingly preserved repetition and relatively intact comprehension.

A word or sound substitution error in aphasia; semantic (related word) or phonemic/literal (sound substitution).

A nonword or made-up word produced in fluent aphasia (e.g., Wernicke's).

The single feature that most reliably separates aphasia types — the flow, phrase length, and grammatical structure of speech output.

A motor speech disorder of execution caused by muscle weakness or abnormal tone, producing slurred, imprecise, and CONSISTENT errors.

A motor speech disorder of planning/programming with no weakness — INCONSISTENT errors, articulatory groping, and trouble sequencing sounds.

A pediatric motor planning disorder: inconsistent productions of the same word, impaired volitional sequencing, and disrupted prosody, without weakness.

Dysarthric errors are CONSISTENT (weakness); apraxic errors are INCONSISTENT with groping (a planning problem).

A structural and functional check of lips, tongue, palate, and cranial nerves that support speech and swallowing.

Innervates the soft palate and pharynx; asymmetric palate elevation on 'ah' signals damage. Key for voice and swallowing.

Provides motor innervation to the tongue; protrusion deviates TOWARD the weak side, often with atrophy.

Innervates facial muscles for lip movements important to speech (e.g., bilabial sounds) and the oral phase of swallowing.

Benign, bilateral, callous-like lesions on the vocal folds from chronic vocal misuse/abuse; treated with voice therapy first.

A usually unilateral, fluid-filled vocal fold lesion, often from a single traumatic vocal event or irritation.

Loss of vocal fold movement, often from CN X / recurrent laryngeal nerve injury; causes breathiness and possible aspiration.

Excessive nasal resonance, suggesting velopharyngeal insufficiency (e.g., cleft palate).

Reduced nasal resonance, suggesting nasal blockage or congestion.

A fluency disorder marked by repetitions, prolongations, and blocks that disrupt the forward flow of speech.

A fluency disorder of rapid and/or irregular rate with reduced intelligibility — distinct from stuttering.

Hearing loss from an outer- or middle-ear problem (e.g., otitis media, cerumen) blocking sound conduction.

Hearing loss from cochlear (hair cell) or auditory nerve damage; generally permanent.

A graph of hearing thresholds by frequency; right-ear air conduction = red circles (O), left-ear = blue X's.

An objective measure of middle-ear function (eardrum mobility) that helps identify conductive problems like fluid.

A swallowing disorder affecting the oral, pharyngeal, and/or esophageal phases, carrying a risk of aspiration.

The voluntary first phase: the bolus is chewed, formed, and propelled back by the tongue toward the pharynx.

The reflexive phase: the swallow triggers, the larynx elevates and the airway closes, and the bolus passes the pharynx. Highest aspiration risk.

The involuntary phase: peristalsis carries the bolus through the upper esophageal sphincter to the stomach.

Entry of food, liquid, or saliva below the level of the vocal folds into the airway.

Aspiration without a cough or overt sign; cannot be confirmed at bedside, so it requires an instrumental study.

A fluoroscopic instrumental study visualizing all swallow phases — the standard for confirming aspiration and physiology.

Fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing — a nasendoscopic view of the pharyngeal swallow; portable and radiation-free.

Pharyngeal spaces where residue collects when the swallow is impaired; pooling there signals a pharyngeal-phase problem.

Sources of communication/swallowing disorders: genetic, developmental, disease/neurological, structural/functional, and psychogenic.

Distinguishing among possible conditions that could explain a presentation to reach the correct diagnosis.

An acquired injury commonly producing cognitive-communication deficits — attention, memory, and executive-function impairments.

Communication deficits from right-brain damage — often pragmatics, prosody, attention, and inference, with relatively intact basic language.

A progressive cognitive decline affecting memory and communication; SLP focuses on supportive, functional strategies.

A goal stating an observable behavior, the condition, and a criterion for mastery, so progress can be judged objectively.

The three required parts of a measurable goal — what the client does, under what circumstances, and to what level of mastery.

A long-term goal is the broad target; short-term objectives are incremental, measurable steps that build toward it.

A goal that is meaningful to the client's daily participation (e.g., 'order food independently'), not just clinic accuracy.

The clinician's prediction of the expected degree and rate of improvement — distinct from the diagnosis.

High motivation, awareness, family support, early intervention, and a single stable lesion improve a client's prognosis.

A phonological treatment that targets error patterns in rotating cycles, using auditory bombardment and stimulable production words.

A cycles step: brief, lightly amplified listening to words containing the target pattern at the start and end of each session.

A phonological treatment using word pairs that differ by one sound (e.g., 'key' vs. 'tea') to make the contrast meaningful.

A phonological treatment contrasting sounds that differ by several distinctive features for broad, system-wide change.

A sound-by-sound motor approach: establish the target sound, then generalize it across positions and contexts.

Guidelines for motor speech treatment: many, meaningful, variable-practice repetitions that build self-monitoring and retention.

A motor speech approach using tactile-kinesthetic cues to guide articulator placement and movement, used for apraxia.

A stuttering treatment that replaces stuttered speech with new fluent patterns — easy onset, prolonged speech, light articulatory contact.

A Van Riper approach that makes moments of stuttering easier (cancellations, pull-outs, preparatory sets) and reduces fear and avoidance.

A fluency-shaping technique of gently beginning voicing with relaxed vocal fold onset to reduce hard glottal attacks.

A stuttering-modification technique: pause after a stuttered word, then re-produce it more easily.

A stuttering-modification technique of easing out of a stutter while it is happening, smoothing the moment.

A stuttering-modification technique of entering a feared word with an easier, planned approach before the stutter occurs.

Blending fluency shaping (smoother speech) with stuttering modification (managing feelings and avoidance).

An approach for young children who stutter that coaches parents and modifies the communicative environment.

Behavioral changes (hydration, reducing yelling/throat-clearing) that reduce vocal misuse — the first line for nodules.

A behavioral voice therapy promoting easy, forward-focused phonation to reduce strain and improve vocal quality.

An aphasia treatment that improves word retrieval by analyzing a target word's features (category, use, properties).

An aphasia treatment using melody and rhythm to facilitate speech production, often in nonfluent (Broca's) aphasia.

A child-language approach embedding targets in child-led, meaningful play to promote spontaneous generalization.

A child-language technique providing many concentrated models of a target form in meaningful contexts.

Augmentative and alternative communication — aided or unaided supports that supplement or replace natural speech.

Unaided AAC uses only the body (gestures, manual signs); aided AAC uses an external tool (picture boards, speech-generating devices).

The AAC process of aligning a system's features with the client's abilities, needs, and environment.

A small set of high-frequency words (want, go, more, stop) usable across many contexts — prioritized in AAC.

Context- or topic-specific words in an AAC system (names, favorite items) that supplement core vocabulary.

Modeling AAC use by pointing to symbols on the client's system while speaking, within natural communication.

A high-tech AAC device that produces spoken output; a dynamic display lets vocabulary pages change on screen.

A technique that makes a single swallow safer right now (e.g., chin tuck, diet modification) without changing physiology.

An exercise that strengthens muscles and changes swallow physiology over time (e.g., effortful swallow, Shaker exercise).

A compensatory swallowing posture that narrows the airway entrance and widens the valleculae to reduce aspiration.

A swallowing technique that prolongs laryngeal elevation to widen and sustain upper esophageal sphincter opening for better clearance.

A rehabilitative technique using a hard swallow to strengthen pharyngeal contraction and clear residue.

A technique of holding the breath to close the vocal folds before and during the swallow to protect the airway.

A rehabilitative exercise strengthening the suprahyoid muscles to improve upper esophageal sphincter opening.

A compensatory strategy thickening liquids or altering food texture; IDDSI provides standardized, testable diet terminology.

The SLP's role in hearing loss — auditory training, speechreading, communication strategies, and counseling to improve function.

Using lip movements, facial expression, and context to support understanding of speech in aural rehabilitation.

Structured listening practice progressing from sound detection to discrimination, identification, and comprehension.

Teaching a client's everyday partners (aides, family) to pause, model, and support communication or AAC use.

Collecting session data and graphing it against the goal criterion to make data-based treatment decisions.

When progress data flatten despite consistent therapy, the clinician re-examines and modifies the target or approach.

Transfer of a learned skill to untrained words, partners, and settings beyond the therapy room.

Continued use of a learned skill after therapy ends, confirmed with follow-up checks.

The point at which goals are met AND the skill is generalized and maintained in the client's daily life.

Sequencing therapy targets from easier to harder (imitation → cued → spontaneous) to build success and independence.

A graded set of supports (from maximal to minimal cues) faded over time to increase the client's independence.

Adjusting treatment (advance, hold, or change the approach) based on collected progress data, not impression.