Anonymous
Post 08/24/2025 18:17     Subject: Speech Therapy Services In ES
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only if the speech difficulties impact them in the classroom -- the teacher can't understand them, kids make fun of them, etc. If it's just articulation, it has to be pretty bad to qualify for an IEP.


You don’t need an IEP to get speech services, at least where we are. My dd couldn’t say “ch” on time so she went to a speech group for a few months and then graduated. I just asked the teacher and she referred her to the SLP.


You can't be MCPS because you aren't getting speech for articulation when you can barely get it for autism or a language disorder.
Anonymous
Post 08/24/2025 11:02     Subject: Speech Therapy Services In ES
At our school, the standard appears to be: If they think you can afford private, they will deny services. If they think you can't, they will approve.
Anonymous
Post 08/24/2025 10:42     Subject: Speech Therapy Services In ES
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Do a formal request for an evaluation from your teacher and the speech therapist at your school. Cc vice principal. They will do some testing and determine if you qualify for services and then they will do the pullout time for your kid. It's usually not enough but something. They have a lot of kids to take care of and not enough resources to go around. Some private therapists will come to school as well. My kid needed help (expressive only and not articulating). She just couldn't get all her thoughts out legibly and got stuck. We did it qualify for services in school but did private once a week at home for 4 months and it was worth every penny and she's much better now.


This. Even so it takes time. We made the request before kindergarten started, and again two weeks in, and DC did not get evaluated until November and services didn't start until January of her kindergarten year. There is one SLP for the entire elementary school which is 600+ kids. She has made progress but not enough and the more progress she makes, the more they cut. And there is zero educational impact so they are going to phase it out soon. They told us point-blank that their standard is whether there is an educational impact, not whether she ever learns to talk completely normally. Knowing that, we started weekly private SLP the summer after 2nd grade.


NP. That's the standard in IDEA. Free school speech therapy is not to maximize a child's potential and give them perfect speech. It's to address educational impact and access to the curriculum. It is a bare bones public system that is stretched to the max. The school SLPs are usually carrying caseloads of 65-80 kids. For many artic issues, going the private route is almost always better.
Anonymous
Post 08/24/2025 09:47     Subject: Speech Therapy Services In ES
Anonymous wrote:Do a formal request for an evaluation from your teacher and the speech therapist at your school. Cc vice principal. They will do some testing and determine if you qualify for services and then they will do the pullout time for your kid. It's usually not enough but something. They have a lot of kids to take care of and not enough resources to go around. Some private therapists will come to school as well. My kid needed help (expressive only and not articulating). She just couldn't get all her thoughts out legibly and got stuck. We did it qualify for services in school but did private once a week at home for 4 months and it was worth every penny and she's much better now.


This. Even so it takes time. We made the request before kindergarten started, and again two weeks in, and DC did not get evaluated until November and services didn't start until January of her kindergarten year. There is one SLP for the entire elementary school which is 600+ kids. She has made progress but not enough and the more progress she makes, the more they cut. And there is zero educational impact so they are going to phase it out soon. They told us point-blank that their standard is whether there is an educational impact, not whether she ever learns to talk completely normally. Knowing that, we started weekly private SLP the summer after 2nd grade.
Anonymous
Post 08/23/2025 14:49     Subject: Speech Therapy Services In ES
The type of service provided in public school varies on caseload size. So if there aren't many students who receive speech in a school and the SLP is there for more than one day/week they may be able to provide 1:1 service. Additionally, just like with academic interventions, an SLP can provide a round of intervention without an IEP. This is likely what PP was referring to with their child who was working on the 'ch' sound. That being said, if the school has a large caseload of students receiving services or the SLP is split between multiple schools, providing support via the intervention model may not be practical for just 1 speech sound.
Anonymous
Post 08/23/2025 13:46     Subject: Speech Therapy Services In ES
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Only if the speech difficulties impact them in the classroom -- the teacher can't understand them, kids make fun of them, etc. If it's just articulation, it has to be pretty bad to qualify for an IEP.


You don’t need an IEP to get speech services, at least where we are. My dd couldn’t say “ch” on time so she went to a speech group for a few months and then graduated. I just asked the teacher and she referred her to the SLP.


Are you in MCPS? If so, what school doesn't require an IEP for speech? Our school requires it and does everything possible to deny the IEP.
Anonymous
Post 08/23/2025 12:51     Subject: Speech Therapy Services In ES
Anonymous wrote:Only if the speech difficulties impact them in the classroom -- the teacher can't understand them, kids make fun of them, etc. If it's just articulation, it has to be pretty bad to qualify for an IEP.


You don’t need an IEP to get speech services, at least where we are. My dd couldn’t say “ch” on time so she went to a speech group for a few months and then graduated. I just asked the teacher and she referred her to the SLP.