What to Tell Parents
Dismissal from speech therapy feels like a huge celebration for both the student and the speech pathologist. But some parents don’t see it that way. Parents may not feel ready to let the child leave speech therapy. I’ve seen this many times. Here the things that I tell parents at dismissal time so that they feel on the same page as me…
10 Things to Tell Parents
1) Speech Therapy Worked!
When I first became a speech pathologist in Chicago public schools, I was working with the lead speech pathologist to evaluate a student who was coming out of the early intervention. The student presented with no speech impairment at all during the evaluation. The speech pathologist talked to the parent during the eligibility meeting and said you know early intervention worked. There’s no speech impairment anymore, how fantastic! It’s important to tell parents that speech therapy works and it fixed the concern that the child had.
2) Eligibility is Three Years Long
One speech eligibility does not mean speech therapy will continue for all of elementary school. It’s sometimes hard for parents to realize that eligibility for speech therapy is not perpetual. The initial eligibility can qualify students for speech therapy for up to three years but after that point it’s time to redo the eligibility and a student might not qualify.
3) Back to the General Education Setting
The best place for kids to be at school is in the classroom. Even coming out for speech therapy once a week for 30 minutes a week is still missed instructional time. Just because parents want their child to get speech therapy doesn’t mean that they aren’t missing something in the classroom. Being in the classroom could be more important to their education than speech therapy if they’ve reached their goals.
4) “Taking advantage of all the services available”
One thing I heard when I wanted to dismiss a student was that the parents said, “I want my kid to continue in speech therapy because I want to take advantage of all the services available for my child.” Well, speech therapy is not like gym, music, library, or computer class. It’s an eligibility for special education; it’s not enrichment. Instead, it’s a service to help the student reach communication success. Once they reach their goals, they should be removed from speech therapy and participate fully in the general education environment.
5) Graduation from speech!
When we frame speech therapy termination as a graduation, I have found that many parents and students feel very happy and excited about that. It’s something that I like to do when I’m working with families is to discuss dismissal as a graduation from many years of being in speech therapy. It is supposed to be a happy time. I’ve seen parents cry tears of relief because they’re ready for their child to be out of speech therapy.
6) Language modeling from peers
I tell parents that being in the classroom with their peer models is valuable. Sometimes what kids really need is interaction and group socialization that they won’t get in speech therapy class. I tell parents that while the intervention that a speech pathologist provides is beneficial, it can be equally beneficial for kids to be in a classroom getting the language modeling from typical peers.
7) Backsliding back into speech therapy?
Many parents worry about their child backsliding after dismissal from speech. As if somehow the student will be unable to sustain the level of mastery that they’ve achieved in speech therapy and they will backslide into needing services again. So parents’ rationale is essentially “why not just keep them on and forget about dismissal?” What I tell parents when they’re worried about backsliding is we need to just move forward with giving it a shot in the regular education classroom. I tell parents that if there is some kind of backsliding I could potentially pull the child for a refresher in a speech RTI group.
8) Your Child Wants This
Parents need to know that some children want to leave speech therapy. They worked hard, they achieved their goals, and they don’t want to go anymore. As we endeavor to be more child-centered, we need to take their opinions into consideration as well.
9) Involve Administration
When the parents are legitimately upset about their child being removed from speech therapy, it’s time to involve administration. I’ve had the principal at one of my schools in a meeting that I was concerned about. I wanted to dismiss the child from speech therapy, but there were some social skills concerns with the student. The student had reached all the speech and language goals; any of the social concerns would not have been addressed in additional speech therapy classes. Maybe the student just needed additional practice in the general education environment or in something like a lunch group. The principal suggested that the social worker take the student in a group to work on social skills. Every team member felt great about this decision. This idea was totally the principal’s idea. Principals and other administrators can think outside the box and may have a solution that has not occurred to you.
10) Consultative Services or Speech RTI
If you can’t get an agreement on the team, you can offer one of two things. Consultative services means the student remains with an IEP but no direct minutes. “Indirect minutes” means that the SLP consults with the teacher about the student’s progress with their communication skills in the classroom. So it’s like monitoring and I can help parents get closer towards being comfortable with leaving speech therapy for good. Or you could consider putting them into a speech RTI group. So the student does not have an eligibility for speech therapy and so they don’t have an IEP, but the student could still potentially come to see you as on an “as needed” basis.
I hope my ideas have helped you when you have to tackle the issue of dismissal with parents. Feel free to comment or email me if you have additional concerns you might have.
I really enjoyed this article! I’ve been there before and currently am there with a parent! My question is how do you set up RtI groups? In the district I work for, we are not allowed to do RtI unless every student in the group is on my caseload. Have you ever run into that? How did you move forward? I’d love to do something but feel like my hands are tied!!
Thank you!!
Thanks for commenting! That’s a tough situation. I think your hands are tied. I wonder if you could talk to your director about that policy and see what he/she says. Good luck! 🙂
Great tips! My school population is so involved, I rarely get to do this, but I know these ideas will be useful in private practice. Thank you!
These are great ideas! This is just my second year as an SLP, but I’ve already learned to think ahead when doing annual and initial IEPs, and lay the groundwork for reducing and dismissal in future years so the parent feels more of a transition than a sudden cutoff of services. At an initial artic meeting I’ll explain that every child progresses at a different rate, but that my goal is to get their speech sounding appropriate for their age as quickly as possible (ex. “Emily may well meet her goals by the end of next year and be ready for reducing her minutes or graduating”). For 4th graders, I mention that I want them to have self-monitoring skills for their sounds or that we will incorporate their language goals into reading/writing services as they get closer to middle school.
I inherited a lot of high schoolers on my caseload this year, whose needs are really already met in the self-contained classroom (mostly autism, ID, OHI). I will often present those cases to the parent as the option of having observations/input with me, or a more ongoing, daily basis by making their classroom goals communication focused (ex. adding ‘student will verbally express ___’ or ‘student will clearly articulate the main idea of passage’ etc. to academic goals). When it’s framed that way, it helps the team see the value of incorporating communication into the primary disability rather than having a secondary disability with separate services. If they’re 9th graders, I talk about how well they’ve transitioned to their high school environment, and based on (most have) a good fit with their classroom placement, as well as a scorecard my district provides, I recommend to parents before the meetings that we look at ways to address their needs under their primary disability. I also have to emphasize carryover a lot at this level, because by the time these students are in high school, I want to focus on carryover of what skills they have acquired to their daily environment.
That ended up being quite long – every student is different and I’ve learned a lot of different approaches to bringing this up with parents and IEP teams!
Very nicely stated and so important for new staff who may feel less comfortable with dismissal. Thanks for sharing!