WWS12D?

Holly_1007

Keagan had a speech eval done through the public school system in our city. In order to be eligible for services he needed to score under an 85 on the test. The highest score is 115. He scored an 88 so is not eligible for services. He barely passed so DH and I are trying to decide if we should explore other options. There is a local college that offers a masters program in speech pathology so I have put a call in to the department chair to see of any students are looking for a child to work with, but I don't even know what would be involved with that. Would you push for services if your child barely passed? Any other suggestions?

hmp1

I wouldn't push for services. If you are wanting to have someone work with him, I would look elsewhere and pay for it.

hmp1

Did they share the full results of the test, or just the score? If you notice or know what areas he scored lower on, you can work on those yourself with him. Articulation, stuttering, sentence structure... I am sure there are plenty of youtube videos you can watch to get some ideas of what to do with him at home.

Holly_1007

Sorry I didn't give as much info, forgot I hadn't talked about it here. We requested the eval. He Is struggling with 'S' 'L' and some other sounds. They shared all the results. He bombed the section regarding the articulation of those sounds, but since he did so well in other areas (sentence structure, length of sentences, context etc) they said that he passed. He has been struggling with these sounds for a while, I brought it up at his 3 yr apt and the pedi said to give it he year. At his 4 yr apt I brought it up again and the pedi said that she supported getting an eval. I've been trying to work with him over the past year and we just aren't making that much progress. I'm not very confident in my abilities which probably doesn't help.

AlinnJo

Those sounds are really tough for some children and sometimes they just aren't developmentally ready to make them. We often had K students that still struggled with those letters. When he gets into school, you can request an eval with the speech pathologist. If you want something sooner, you'll probably have to pay out of pocket or look up some videos like hmp suggested. But since he scored so high in other areas, I wouldn't be as concerned. He just needs more time.

Holly_1007

I really don't want to appeal the public school ruling. I guess I'm just more curious if other moms would be nervous about the fact that he BARELY passed.

Holly_1007

He is in preschool but it is a private school and they don't offer services. The girl that did his eval said that sometimes kids dont develop these sounds until later, but that it can make it more difficult for them to learn to read ( which is exactly the struggle we had with my SD).

Holly_1007

Hey @linzeek44‌ what are your thoughts?

ellebee2

The way I look at it is a pass is a pass. Regardless of by how much or how little. 

So I probably wouldn't push for additional services. 

That being said, I would likely do what I can at home to help develop the skill set that may be lacking. And then see about getting a re-evaluation if progress isn't being made. 

amandad715

What about continuing to work with him and give it another 6 months? If things haven't progressed like you've liked, then seek out private testing to determine if he's still falling behind (with his sounds) or has made progress.
The idea about finding a student in a master's program is a great idea! Let us know what happens with that. My sister is an SLP in our district and mostly sees early childhood kiddos with IEPs, some just for speech and some in special ed. She used to do private therapy on the side too. But one thing I have learned from her is that unless the articulation is causing a problem with their learning(I.e. Reading, vocabulary), speech won't pick them up. At least in our district. So, if he's doing well in other areas, which that is what it sounds like, you may have to go the private route anyways.
Eta-spelling today is not my thing. Out =/=our

AKB090609

It is very common for children (especially boys) to have issues with those sounds. When I worked in the school district we did not refer kids for speech (unless they had other issues as well) until they were at least 8 years old because most kids outgrow the issue on their own by then. So in my opinion I would just make sure that when you hear the issue you repeate the correct pronounciation to him for extra exposure. I would not stress at this point.

hmp1

James often drops S or L when they are the first letter of a word. He is doing fine with sight words starting with those letters so I am not at all worried about having reading problems in the future because of his articulation. He goes through stuttering phases too but since he always seems to work himself out of them, I am not concerned. His teachers have reassured me that he is on track for his age even though these things seem very noticeable to me. 

James is also fighting an upward battle of a terrible TN accent but I think that is something I am going to have to live with

Hyaline

So...the eval said he had problems with the stuff you already knew he had issues with, and confirmed that he's a-ok in other areas.  Right?  So...what's the big deal?  It wouldn't upset me at all that he "barely passed" given that the only area he struggles with is an area I already knew about.  If I'm not mistaken, as they get older, they often push harder to work on correcting those issues with special intervention but dang--if every kid who had trouble with a letter or two was in speech help, half the school would be!

He's four.  If he were in third grade, I would be responding differently  Don't get too worked up about this!

Holly_1007

Yeah, you guys are right. The reason I'm a little up in arms about it is because we dealt with the exact same thing with my SD. Her mom refused to push after barely passing the eval and she REALLY struggled to read. First grade was SO hard on all of us. I don't want keagan to struggle, especially if it is something we are able to address earlier. He just has such awesome things to say, and the sounds coming out of his mouth just dont match up with what he is saying.

linzeek44

Looking at the local college is a great idea. I know in grad school we had a lot of speech-related studies going on, so parents could enroll their kids in a master's thesis study and get free help. Certainly can't hurt. 

To be borderline is really hard. A re-eval, typically, won't necessarily help since the results will probably be the same. 

Since you know what the issue is, you can do proactive things at home if you don't want to pay for articulation help which may or may not be helpful since some of it is developmental. L sound typically is mastered at 5 I think, so he is really young. You are noticing and watching and thinking of ways to help him, which is great.

Here are some websites I have saved on my computer re: speech and artic issues:

https://www.westonps.org/page.cfm?p=2482

(This one has books that can help with each sound. So you can read it and model and then have him re-read it to you.)

https://mommyspeechtherapy.com

(This one has ideas and really parent-friendly explanations. You can also search for just posts tagged as articulation.)