O/T-- School Speech Therapy Question

[ekatiel]

I will try to make this as short as possible. DS is 5 (he just turned 5 in July). He has a minor articulation delay. He has received speech therapy since he was 19 months old, first through ECI, and then through our local elementary school. We decided to hold him out of kindergarten this year b/c he wasn't quite ready yet in our opinion (it is very common in our area to hold out summer born boys). I discussed holding him out at our ARD last Spring, and the head of speech at the school at that time told me that it would not be a problem-- he would still receive services at the school for the coming year. Well, I get a call today from the new head of speech at the school, and she tells me that since he's 5 and enrolled in preschool in a different school district that he will need to receive services in that district. I've looked up the applicable spec ed laws, and they are pretty gray in this area. It seems like if you have your child enrolled in a "private" school, then she's right, the district of residence is not obliged to offer services, but it lists a "private" school as one that offers "elementary or secondary curriculum" which our preschool does not (we don't even have a Kinder class there). Also, something that scares me is that once your child transfers services to the district where the private school is located, he loses his IEP, and is given a "service plan", which seems like a non-legally binding document to me. It also says that if your child is enrolled in a private school, then you basically lose all rights to services-- it's the district's descretion as to whether or not they want to provide them. Anyhow, anybody been through this? Does anybody have any insight?? TIA!-- Katie

 

[hmacmahony]

I wish I had better news for you, but I don't.
My oldest daughter at age 5, was at a 80% unintelligable level, with her articulation issues still. She has a VERY late birthday (10 days before the cutoff).
We opted to keep her home another year, because of the articulation issues. They were affecting her behavior, her social skills, we were worried how she would learn to read, etc etc.
Even being THAT close to the cutoff, with a significante delay. She was still not given services. She would of been given services had we sent her to kindergarten, but our district will not budge on this issue. We went round and round and round with them, even going to so far as to getting a child advocate for my daughter. The school was willing to push this issue to court. We just decided that going to court was not worth it, between all the money spent, and the time (the school year would of been half over by the time it was settled), it just wasn't worth it.
Sadly, private speech therapy in our area is insane (100s of dollar for a 45 minute session). Our insurance will not cover speech therapy, unless it was due to illness or injury (LIKE COMA!!). So, we were left with no speech for my daughter who despretaly needed it.
We were very very lucky, in the end. I dug and dug and found out two of the colleges within 30 mintues of our house did speech clinics (basically the kids graduating are the teachers, it is real world experience for them). It was VERY cheap (500 a semester, and she got 2 hours of speech a week through them!). So, we were able to get her into this program. They actually squeezed her in, and bypassed the waiting list for us since we were in such a prediciment with her speech (which I will be eternally grateful). That program was amazing, her speech grew so much that when she finally started kindergarten the next year, her speech therapist she had in the preschool program (through the school district), was worried she would not even qualify for speech (she did, and still gets it, in second grade, but for age appropriate speech sounds).

You could easily fight this issue with your school district, because it is a very grey area. If the school wanted to provide services they could, IF, is the key word. Ours did not because if they did for us, they would have to for everyone in our situation.

I hope you find something that is able to help your little guy! Sorry you have to go through this, it SUCKS!

 

[mom2val]

Does the school in your district that he would have gone to if he had started kinder. have a PPCD program (Pre-school Program for children with Disabilities) ? My dd had a speech dealy - went the ECI route and the day after she turned 3 she started PPCD at the elem down the street. She was in there until she started kinder.

 

[Duckyiam71]

I too wish I had better news. My DS5 was in speech therapy with ECI until 3 then he was dropped because of age. We had a good friend who is a speech therapist help us. Then we enrolled in the school district speech therapy when he was in Pre k. We had to pull him and put him in a private daycare and no longer "qualified" for speech therapy since he was not a student anymore. Fast forward to now, he is in K now and will be in speech therapy again. But he is getting surgery next week for being severely tongue tied. We have had to appeal with the insurance about quality of life. Appealing to your insurance and having teachers and doctors explain the severity of the situation may help in the appeal to get therapy. It took us 6 months to get any movement from health insurance but now they are paying for the surgery and any neccessary therapy needed afterwards. Good luck. I will pray for you. It is a very tough road. I know my situation is a little different.

 

[momof3+twins]

How much do you understand that your child says? Because if your child is really hard to understand at this age, a private therapist can diagnose any major problems that a school can't (laws prevent it). And sometimes ( like my son) the private therapist actually is better for severe problems. My son has apraxia of speech (is 6 1/2 and I still can't understand most of what he says) but is really coming along with the private therapist. Good Luck!!

 

[Mickey_Dust]

Sorry I can't help with the School issues as we have not crossed that bridge yet... I will say that please if you are considering insurance covered therapy call your provider and get the clarifications and specifics before hand... Our insurance co. has 14 months of therapy for my 3yr old son in review because they say they don't cover developmental delays (they consider Apraxia a Developmental Delay) and now the end result could be as bad and back billing us for all of it...

Does your school offer itinerate services? If he has an IEP I thought the school district had to provide the services (You pay taxes to that local school district.) (However I am new to this and need to look up and read up on all of it, I am probably completely wrong).

 

[ekatiel]

Thanks for your insights guys-- even if it isn't good news. I tell you, sometimes the school district seems dead set against doing what is best for your kid . DS's articulation delay is slight, so it won't be huge if he gets no services (although I was hoping to get good therapy this year in the hopes that he'd be exited by the time he started kinder). I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. His speech teacher last year really didn't do much (she's not even an SLP-- she was still in school for that). I think I'm going to call the district where his preschool is located and see what they say. What makes me really mad is that our district flat-out lied to us last year at his ARD (how I wish I had tape recorded that ARD!!) by telling us that he would still receive services from them even if we did preschool another year. --Katie

 

[NJFabFour]

I wish you the best of luck Katie!
I am a Speech Therapist in NJ working in Early Intervention and have to concur, that yes, our parents' options are to accept what is offered through the school district or seek other options privately. When your school district stated that he would continue to receive services if he continued preschool, was it perhaps under the assumption that he would be in their own preschool program? I'm just wondering if they were not aware that he may be pulled out to attend another program out-of-district when they made that assertion. I have a lot of children I see whose families are not in agreement with what the school district offers so, yes, unfortunately they are left to seek out other alternatives on their own. I so desperately wish that insurance coverage was much more generous in this area, but unfortunately, it is too often an uphill battle. If you haven't checked it out before, the ASHA website (American Speech and Hearing Assoc) has some good resources and information for parents - it is www.asha.org. Again, the best to your son!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I live in Brevard County, FL.

Here--you recieve services based on where you live and are zoned to attend school. This is regardless if you actually go there.

If you homeschool, or attend a private school--you would still do that.

The only time they make you go to a different school is if the school you are zoned for does not offer the specific service you need.

We are contemplating (me more so than DH who likes "free") keeping my son in private speech when he turns 3 as it becomes less likely that the county therapists in the school system will have the experience to treat an Apraxic child. Also--he would have to do group therapy. I am not looking forward to that decision.

It may be worth looking into your state education laws--though I do not know exactly where you would look for your issue.

But where I live, there are many homeschoolers who still get county services and I have known private school students to get them as well if the private school is not equipped for that.

 

[MichelleinMaine]

My DD was in speech and I also held her back a year (birthday a month before cut off.) She would have lost all services, not a huge deal, but sounds like a similar situation to yours, I'd have liked her to "finish". There was a last minute change to our state's policies that kids within an month and a half of the cut off could still receive services. Phew.

A friend with a late summer birthday son who has Down Syndrome, though, had to send him to kindergarten for him to continue to receive his multiple therapies. He really wasn't ready. He ended up repeating K (which again not a huge deal, but she really would have preferred the option not to send him that first year.)