Fighting for Speech Therapy for a Gifted Child?

[ramama]

My DD is in 1st grade.  She is moderately gifted.  She has speech issues, r's mainly, but other ones as well (other ones I don't even know how to explain, such as "bowl" and "bull" sound the same).  I recently got the results of her speech evaluation, but the IEP meeting hasn't happened yet.  She performed in the 10th percentile for articulation, which I fear is going to make her ineligible for services.  However, I do not think it's okay at all for a child who is reading at a 5th grade level with very advanced verbal skills to be performing in the 10th percentile in articulation.  Because she is doing well in school, she is likely to be denied services for speech because it is not impacting her school work.

Has anyone else been through this?  Any ideas on arguments I can make?  Help!

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by ramama 

  However, I do not think it's okay at all for a child who is reading at a 5th grade level with very advanced verbal skills to be performing in the 10th percentile in articulation.  Because she is doing well in school, she is likely to be denied services for speech because it is not impacting her school work.

They are unrelated issues. She isn't any more or less eligable for speech based on her reading scores.

Is an IEP meeting scheduled? Have you requested on in writing? When did you request it?

You might double post on the special needs board because I suspect more of the moms there have experience with IEP meetings.
This isn't a gifted issue.

Sadly, the state you live in makes a difference when advocating for services that are not directly related to school to performance. It shouldn't, and it all covered under federal law, but it is interpreted differently in different places.

[ramama]

See, I do think it is a gifted issue.  All other factors being the same, if she were struggling with reading or writing, she'd already be getting speech services.  I asked the principal point-blank, if she were struggling in school would she be getting services and the reply was "Sadly, yes."  There are other children in her class who are receiving speech therapy for identical problems, but who are struggling with reading.  To me it seems like a sick, twisted game of handicapping our children like life is a horse race.  To me, it's not okay for her to grow to adulthood with a speech impediment just because she is bright.  Just because she's found ways to compensate, doesn't mean that she doesn't need services.  Still, she cries at home in fear of getting a speaking part in the class musical because she can't say her r's.  Ugh.  Essentially, and this is not an oversimplification, the only reason she is not getting services is because she's performing above standards in school in all other areas.

Supposedly the IEP meeting has been scheduled, but I haven't received notification of it yet.  

[CCJWGM]

Have you considered private speech therapy?  For our insurance the need of speech therapy is proven in that DS's articulation is so low but the other language skills are high. The discrepancy alone proved the need for ST. Now, we are homeschoolers and even though we qualify for ESD services I choose to go private.  So our circumstances are different.  I just wanted to throw out there that there are other ST options which you may not be aware of. Good luck!

[A-time-to-live]

In the schools there is a need for the disability/delay to affect educational performance in order to qualify for services.  That is likely why the students who are struggling in reading are getting services for artic.  You should be able to argue that your DD should qualify for services if she is so anxious that she is afraid to speak in front of the class or if her teachers/peers have difficulty understanding her.

[RiverTam]

Yes. My son has a speech disorder/delay and is gifted.  We didn't fight this battle. I simply found and paid for private speech therapy.

If you can't get it through your school, and you don't have insurance for it (We didn't), and can't afford private therapy, look around for a university speech clinic. One of the universities in our area gives speech therapy for $10 an hour X 2 hours per week.  It's super cheap and I've heard good things about them.  A graduate student does the therapy under the supervision of a professor. 

[KCMichigan]

Originally Posted by Linda on the move 

They are unrelated issues. She isn't any more or less eligable for speech based on her reading scores.

Sadly, the state you live in makes a difference when advocating for services that are not directly related to school to performance. It shouldn't, and it all covered under federal law, but it is interpreted differently in different places.

Ditto this.

Really-- any child that meets the 'qualifications' for speech should get services. The state we moved from offered speech IEPs w/o academic testing. Kids were screened by the SLP in Sept and students that had SEVERE artic or language concerns got picked up on her caseload (SLP). If there were no academic concerns-- there was no academic testing (particularly in K it is hard to show academic delay due to the normal range of acceptable skills).

BUT that said-- other schools in our area were not so proactive and/or as flexibile.

That also said--- it depends on age for artic. Most artic kids did not get picked up in K/1st since some error self-correct. The 'r' is one of the latest sounds to develop and can come as late as age 8. Our SLP (who was fantastic) would not have picked up a kiddo for isolated sound errors unless it rendered the speech unintelligible and/or it was causing sound/letter confusion.

I dont know which Dd you are referring to (the older or younger).  If your DD is the older one  and closing on age 8- I would be concerned. If it is your younger DD, most SLP would give minor artic errors some more time to self-correct.

Originally Posted by A-time-to-live 

 You should be able to argue that your DD should qualify for services if she is so anxious that she is afraid to speak in front of the class or if her teachers/peers have difficulty understanding her.

You could go this route too....totally depending on how severe her artic errors are and her age. Most schools have a scale and a cut off for artic to qualify. BUT if there is intense anxiety or mutism involved, they often will intervene sooner.

Often if a kiddo with artic errors is falling behind in reading-- they will place the kiddo in for reading AND artic errors together. Since the sound errors are preventing learning sound/letter relationships (a j sounds like a dr or a a v sounds like th, etc) and can seriously hamper writing, spelling, and ability to read/decode words.

Kids that are not behind in reading and are 90%+ intelligible and under age 8 are often given some more 'time' since many will self-correct.

It looks as if your Dd falls in this category. It has nothing to do w/ giftedness (an average non-GT student would also be this way and possibly not qualify for speech as well) but rather the qualifying standards most districts use.

Artic is often a musculature/ oral motor concern and has little to do with IQ and/or 'reading' ability. It is more of a the ability to move the tongue/lips/mouth in the correct formation to make certain sounds. I would doubt that it would make a difference between your DD being AT grade level or way ABOVE grade level, if the artic is not impacting her success at school and she is under the acceptable age range for the errors, there is little to go on besides anxiety that it may cause her, which is something you should keep in mind-- but does make it a bit more complicated to get services since it can be more subjective than a flat score for qualification.

Good Luck- fight for speech only services, even if it is on consult and/or home exercises. You could also see what your insurance would cover for private speech class. OR wait until she gets past the 'age' limit for those particular speech errors and request a reeval for services ( it is awful to wait, but sometimes it does make a difference since scores are normed by age and there can be a big difference even between 3 months a 7y10m old and a 8y 1m old  per percentile ranking and scores)

As, PP stated---- it can vary by school, district, and state, depending on how they interpret the law and qualifications. Some areas are more proactive than others unfortunately.

FWIW- DH is very smart/intelligent and has had a moderate stutter his whole life- he still sounds, talks, writes, thinks very intelligently and no one would ever think otherwise. His stutter is just part of his speech patterns at this point and to be honest I rarely notice it anymore. He also has been a successful salesman and is very much an extrovert. He had therapy through school from 3-5th grade ( he did not qualify before 3rd grade due to age/developmental appropriateness), but it did not really help (and he doubts it would have made a difference for earlier speech services) and it was discontinued since it did not seem to be impacting him in anyway (good grades, good social life, etc). Yes, in middle school and high school he was self-conscience about it- but as an adult it is only a rare concern for certain words/sounds (he avoids words he knows will give him trouble) and requires extra prep for presentations/speeches. 

Edited by KCMichigan - 5/8/11 at 12:55pm

[lindberg99]

Do you have a college near you that has a speech therapy program? I do and my DS (also 1st grader) was able to get 2 years of free therapy at our local college. He had a student clinician but she was supervised by a registered SLP. That might be an option for you. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, probably just continue on with working on his articulation on my own. I had to observe every therapy session so I have learned a lot about speech therapy for articulation! The student also gave me a lot of practice materials, etc. to keep working on.

If your insurance won't cover private therapy, home therapy might work for your DD. My middle son (who is gifted) was having trouble with his -TH sound in 3rd grade. He saw the speech therapist at school. She said there was no way he'd qualify for services but she met with me and gave me material to work on at home with him. She also had showed him how to make the sound. He got it within a short time, I'd say a couple months. Your DD might be the same way. Since she is so bright, she probably will be able to figure out how to make the sound just by having someone tell her "how" to do it.

[whatsnextmom]

That doesn't really make sense. I'd try talking to the speech department directly to find out what the exact qualifications are. You might also go to the district level and learn more. I actually wonder how much the principal knows about it. In our district, speech is a seperate program with it's own qualifications and outside the principals jurisdiction. If she doesn't qualify with the school, I'd look into private avenues.

[quaz]

Deleted.

Edited by quaz - 5/25/11 at 10:28am

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by quaz 

The caps are usually pretty low, but 10% I would think is below any cap. 

Is 10% really that low? That would mean that 2-3 students in an average classroom would qualify. It seems like a pretty reasonable threshold to me. I'm certainly not an expert on speech therapy but in general in child development "below the 25th percentile" is where you might make a tick-mark to check back on that area in the future but figure it's probably normal, and "below the 10th" is where you might look for related issues and problems and consider further investigation and/or treatment if there are indicators. But in the absence of related issues you would probably just observe for a while to see whether that child was just a slightly late bloomer.

My 8-year-old has only just got full unambiguous articulation of /r/ and /l/ in the past six months. She had been close for a couple of years, but there were still slight overtones of the other sound in each. I was pretty sure that was normal. We never pursued speech therapy, and the fact that she's likely PG didn't seem relevant. 

Miranda

[quaz]

Deleted.

Edited by quaz - 5/25/11 at 10:29am

[caelia]

We  have a similar situation.  My daughter is in 1st grade at a GT magnet school.  She was able to qualify for speech because the way she says "r" is apparently atypical even for kids who receive speech (I don't really know anything about all the terms that have been mentioned in this thread, but this is what I gathered from the speech therapist at her school).  Instead of substituting a "w" sound which is apparently the more common issue, she substitutes the "i" or "oy" sound, depending on the word.  So, "artist" sounds like i-tist and "skateboard" sounds like skateboyd.  According to the speech therapist, that was a significant enough distinction that allowed her to qualify once she turned 7 in March.  I'm not sure if the gifted issue even factored in, since all the kids at the school have tested gifted.  At the IEP meeting, we did mention that it is difficult for her others (peers and teachers) to understand her, and that she was becoming more sensitive about having to repeat herself all the time, and still not being understood.  We also mentioned that when she spells words out loud (they work with peers for spelling practice), her friends sometimes tell her she is spelling words wrong.  They tell her it's "r", not "i" and she says, "that's what I said!"  So, I guess that counted as interfering with academics.

I guess my point is that maybe you can find examples of what they are looking for to qualify.  Her teacher mentioned in the meeting that she rarely anwswers questions in front of the class, and the speech therapist put that in as evidence that she is reluctant to talk in front of the class (even though I don't think that is really the case with her).  But really, they are just looking for examples that they can put in the paperwork. Have you talked to the actual speech therapist?