Even if you go with private therapy, ask for a speech eval. If nothing else, the evaluation will be paid for, and you can take that to a private provider.

If the speech impacts a child’s confidence, that is relevant too because if they’re afraid to speak up for fear classmates will tease them that impacts their ability to access education. Therefore, educational impact.

Anonymous wrote:If you can afford private just save yourself the headache and go get it. APS will do gymnastics to find a way to deny you services. My kid is really hard to understand and we're always asking him to repeat himself. School claims there's no impact. They vacillate between we all understand him perfectly at school and there's no problem because he is always so willing to repeat himself.

They suck.

Yep. My kid’s K teacher referred him for an eval because she had trouble understanding him, but he was already doing intensive private therapy. School said no issue, kid was able to make himself understood with repetition. Teacher then referred him to counsellor for repeating himself and “speaking out of turn.” It was a long year.

Ask the school who their SLP is, and email both the classroom teacher and that person. Ask if they believe it's worth a look. If they take action, great - you may be on your way to services through the school, and they have staff who can explain the entire (long, but thorough) process. If not, you're back where you started and can go private for services as needed, so no risk in reaching out.

If you can afford private just save yourself the headache and go get it. APS will do gymnastics to find a way to deny you services. My kid is really hard to understand and we're always asking him to repeat himself. School claims there's no impact. They vacillate between we all understand him perfectly at school and there's no problem because he is always so willing to repeat himself.

They suck.

To get evaluated you just ask the school, but like others have said the bar to receive speech services at school is high. There needs to be a social or educational impact. Is your child difficult to understand, is your child frustrated, or is spelling impacted?

Speech therapy will be the same in the school or private. With private therapy you most likely will pay out of pocket, but you can get the process started faster, and you don't have to prove any sort of need.

Were you in APS for kindergarten? That's when they do the usual screening for speech therapy. They flag a lot of kids there -- not just "severe" issues. I know maybe a third of my son's class was flagged for speech therapy. They set up an IEP if you get flagged. The in school therapy is very effective, my son aged out when he was in second grade.

Sorry- here is the chart for sound acquisition!!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjKydX1zvn7AhW8EFkFHbHhDLIQFnoECA0QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.asha.org%2Fsiteassets%2FPractice-Portal%2FLate-Language-Emergence%2FConsonant-Acquisition-Chart.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0DpDD8ViaMsVxWE1E_JV_0

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that the speech has to be bad enough to impact the student's ability to access education. For lesser issues, you need to pay for private services.

Correct. Is there an educational impact? Can your student be understood by teachers and peers? Does their inability to articulate words affect their ability to spell and write the words correctly? R is a tricky speech sound because it has a large window for mastery. Here is a chart that shows the typical age for sound acquisition. I think normal acquisition can be up to 7 and even a bit later before it's considered delayed enough to need therapy.

You could ask for something called SPRINT which is a general education articulation speech program. It's focus is on frequent short sessions (like 2-3 times a week for 10 minutes at a time).

But private therapy is going to be the most effective for this. You could start private therapy at the same time as going through the school testing process, which takes 3-4 months total from referral to eligibility.

Anonymous wrote:In APS and I believe other jurisdictions are the same spring here, you have to get an IEP to access speech services through school and it has to be pretty severe. The bar is they have to have trouble being understood basically. Which is a pretty severe speech issue. Any one I know who’s done it through school it’s group work and not terribly effective.

We went private. My kids both had lisps.

Just go private with services. APS is abysmal for speech services (among other things). Or maybe it was just at our school. The therapist was terrible and routinely just didn’t show up. We stopped using them and just did private. We were not at ATS. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

My child received speech services through Arlington County & APS for articulation that impacted their intelligibility. Our daycare flagged it for us, and we went through an evaluation at age 4, and they continued to receive services through 1st grade when they graduated from speech therapy. The SLP that served our school was amazing. We are currently working on having our child evaluated for OT. For this, I raised it to my child's teacher, she confirmed that she shared the same thoughts/concerns, and we are now on a trajectory for having our child evaluated for possible OT services. I would raise your concerns to your child's teacher and ask if they experience the child as having speech challenges and issues with articulation and what the next steps might be for having your child evaluated.

My understanding is that the speech has to be bad enough to impact the student's ability to access education. For lesser issues, you need to pay for private services.

Anonymous wrote:In APS and I believe other jurisdictions are the same spring here, you have to get an IEP to access speech services through school and it has to be pretty severe. The bar is they have to have trouble being understood basically. Which is a pretty severe speech issue. Any one I know who’s done it through school it’s group work and not terribly effective.

We went private. My kids both had lisps.

*are the same around here

In APS and I believe other jurisdictions are the same spring here, you have to get an IEP to access speech services through school and it has to be pretty severe. The bar is they have to have trouble being understood basically. Which is a pretty severe speech issue. Any one I know who’s done it through school it’s group work and not terribly effective.

We went private. My kids both had lisps.

I have a first grader who still doesn’t say her “r”s and says some letters and words weirdly. How do I get her evaluated for speech therapy at APS and what does the process look like? Also at this age what are the benefits of going private vs going through the school? She goes to ATS. Thank you so much.