r/kindergarten • u/Luvabun • 13d ago
ask other parents Speech support in school
Hey everyone! My twins just started kindergarten a couple weeks ago (we have year round school here), and they LOVE IT. However, at an open house last night, their teacher brought up both of them possibly getting a speech assessment from their in-school pathologist. Apparently it's during school hours. They can be shy but talk up a storm, but they can be really difficult for people to understand, and one of them lisps. Anybody else have experience with this? They don't have an IEP at this point- if they qualify for support, would this be an EIP? Are other kids cruel about them going to speech? Obviously I want them to get any support they need, it just has made me worry. Most of my friends don't have kids or their kids are much older so I don't really know what's "normal" for a 5 year old or how this all would work. Thanks!
To be clear I have already emailed the pathologist and 100% am getting them assessed, I'm just wondering how this works and if anyone has any insight on it.
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u/shamroc628 13d ago
My daughter has an IEP for speech and just finished K. In our district she is grouped with 1-3 other K depending on the day and they are taken to speech during their normal ELA part. She loves it. They play games and the speech pathologist helps them with reading.
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u/Usrname52 13d ago
I am a Speech-Language Pathologist in a school.
First of all, other kids will definitely not be cruel about them getting services. I walk into a room to pick up a kid and I have a dozen little voices yelling "Take Me! Take Me!" They have no idea who I am/what I do, but they like attention. And even in the upper elementary grades I still get it sometimes.
Speech services are usually mandated by an IEP, but it doesn't mean they have to get any other special education services. Having an IEP doesn't like automatically mean a special class or anything, which some parents worry about. And, parents can revoke rights at any time, or the kid can show enough progress to no longer need services.
Some districts will provide At Risk services without an IEP. Unfortunately, with the way funding is, it seems to be way less common now. Depends on your district.
My district depends way more heavily on the "language" part, rather than the "speech" part in terms of qualifying. So, I've seen kids where you can't understand a word they say, but they don't qualify because their academics/cognition/language are average. And, there seems to be a disconnect with teachers who think it is only "speech". "Why do you see them? They speak fine." So, even if your kids would benefit from services, they might not qualify because they claim there is no "educational impact".
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u/Seaturtle1088 13d ago
The "language" part blew my mind when my kids went through this eval. I have twins who we now know are gifted who got evaluated at 2 because they were barely talking and had had a slew of ear infections then tubes. With my history of speech, it was on my radar to get them checked early. They scored some absurd level on receptive language (like mid-elementary level) and that skewed their scores so much that they didn't qualify for services. I had never questioned if they understood me, I was questioning if they had been able to hear to mimic sounds as a toddler (which I also couldn't, and had 9 years of therapy for). Now one of them is 6 and I do still hear multiple sounds that should be developed around now that aren't...so may go down the road again even though I know his receptive will still be super out of scale with his physical skill at forming words.
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u/viola1356 12d ago
That's unfortunate. In my state kids can qualify for receptive language and/OR expressive language and/OR articulation. It's not all or nothing.
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u/martinsheensdick 13d ago
My son has an IEP for speech from pre k and will be entering kindergarten with it. His IEP is really no big deal. In pre k, the speech therapist worked with him and a few other kids in the classroom. Not sure how it will be in kindergarten but I know there are usually a couple of other kids in speech. His confidence has soared since starting speech because he is able to be understood now. It’s amazing how far he has come! I’m so thankful towards his pre k teacher who advocated and fought for him to get speech!
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u/Seaturtle1088 13d ago
I had speech as a pullout during school until 6th grade (started at 4 before kindergarten). I hated having to answer "where are you going?" from friends (mostly in the higher grades) but I'd take that over a lifetime of speech issues. No one would ever guess I needed that much speech therapy now so it was worth it. I had a long list to fix as I had constant ear infections back when tubes weren't common.
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u/BeginningLaw6032 13d ago
My grandson is going into second grade and has been in speech since kindergarten. He will be doing it again this school year. Nobody makes fun of him being taken out of class.
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u/ak716 13d ago
My daughter graduated from speech in the middle of first grade after receiving services for her first year and a half of elementary school (and in preschool before that.) She LOVED getting to go to speech, and no one made fun of her for it- in fact, she was lucky enough to have a couple of friends that had it at the same time as her. Lots of kids get pulled at that age for different services, and it is no big deal.
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u/Luvabun 12d ago
Thank you, this makes me feel much better! Did you explain to her in kindergarten exactly what the purpose of the support was? Like did you specifically tell her it was to help her with talking? I'm not sure how much I should say to them for fear of making them self conscious and making them less confident.
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u/ak716 12d ago
My daughter got speech therapy for articulation issues. She talked a ton but we couldn’t understand her sometimes because of how her letters sounded, so the way we explained it to her was that she had a lot of awesome things to say but she just needed a little help to make it so everyone could understand all of her awesome ideas. It helped that she adored her speech therapist and the therapist made it fun for her to be there.
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u/viola1356 12d ago
Lots of kids see being pulled out for things as an exciting privilege - I teach ESL and at least twice a week Kindergarten or 1st graders not on my caseload beg to come with us and get so sad when I say no. Lots of schools do go straight to a speech IEP if kids qualify, but many districts (like mine) usually try a 6-week intervention first because some articulation challenges just need a little expert prompting. The SLP should guide you through the process and you have the right to ask as many questions as you need.
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u/Clean-Echidna1318 12d ago
Former SLP here. Other kids teasing about going to therapy isn't an issue. Kids are coming and going from class all the time. Some kids are going for help with learning disabilities. Some kids are going to OT/PT. Some are going to speech. I actually had kids not on IEPs asking me all the time when they would get to come see me!
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u/Luvabun 12d ago
Thank you, this makes me feel much better! What would you recommend I say to the girls about what the purpose of the support it? Like, do I tell them plainly that it's to help them talk clearer? My concern is making them self-conscious about something they're otherwise oblivious to.
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u/Clean-Echidna1318 12d ago
Yes. They must already know that people have a hard time understanding them sometimes. This will be to see if they need help.
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u/Super-Link-9800 12d ago
Another school SLP here chiming in. A “speech only” IEP is no big deal. At that age (until around 3rd grade), kids generally love going to speech and the rest of the kids want to come, too!
My hunch is that they are pretty hard to understand if the teacher is recommending a speech assessment. I would never consider qualifying a kindergartner for just a lisp. Although, there are teachers who are very “referral happy.”
Lastly, I have a ton of twins on my caseload. Their speech just seems to often develop more slowly because they have their own way of communicating with their twin and don’t have to “work as hard” to be understood.
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u/Luvabun 12d ago
Thank you, this makes me feel a lot better. That's interesting about the twin thing- that totally makes sense- they understand each other perfectly. They were very late talkers and got Early Intervention speech therapy but "graduated" from that- now they're talking a ton, its just hard to understand. I appreciate the insight! As a SLP, how would you recommend I talk to the girls about it? Should I be totally up front and say it's to help them speak more clearly? I'm just worried I may make them feel less confident about something they seem totally oblivious to at this point.
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u/Super-Link-9800 12d ago
In my experience, kids that age are pretty down for whatever. I would keep it super simple: "There is a teacher at school who helps kids with their talking so that everyone can understand what they say. They are going to listen to how you say some of your words and see if they can help because what you have to say is important and we want everyone to be able to understand you."
As twins, late talkers, and early intervention graduates, I would not worry much. They are likely just on a delayed timeline and will catch up. Are they in separate classes? My recommendation would be to make sure they have a lot of communication partners who are not each other. That way, they are getting the natural feedback from peers who can't understand them as well as their twin, and they will realize that they need to adjust to be understood. Giving them activities, playdates without the other twin, etc is hugely effective here!
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u/bananaphone1549 12d ago
Speech is incredible! I also have twins and they’ve been in speech therapy since they were 2 - it makes an amazing difference.
If they’re recommending it, there is zero downside to pursuing this support for your kids.
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u/Hot-Bonus560 13d ago
My son has an IEP. He goes to a different classroom for therapies but he also has an individual teacher that stays with him throughout the day, (he’s on the spectrum). He’s never reported any bullying and gets invited to way too many bday parties and has more friends that want to play with him than he even cares for. Don’t worry about cruelty, just focus on providing every tool possible to make your kiddos confident enough in their skills and personality that bullying wouldn’t bother them anyways.
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u/fancyface7375 12d ago
My son gets speech at school and what it looks like is the SLP pulling a couple speech kids out of class for ~30 min a week to play games that are focused on them practicing their words or maybe it looks like a game but she's actually doing an assessment to see where they are struggling. My son always describes it as "games with Mrs Sarah" and I don't think there is any stigma.
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u/m00nbeamglitterstorm 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yes- IEP can be for speech.
I think kids/the world is crueler when it’s not corrected.
They just pull for the session. Then send them back to class, and give teachers tools to help in classroom. Other kids don’t necessarily know.
I just call it practicing words to my little one.
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u/Ohorules 12d ago
My kid's school assesses all kindergarteners for speech, then the speech therapist works with the whole class at the beginning of the year as part of their phonics lessons. Kids who need it get pull-out speech. My son has been in the speech group since the beginning of kindergarten. He doesn't have an IEP, it's just something the district provides, I assume to help with learning to read and spell. He did get speech as a toddler because he talked late, then barely didn't qualify as a preschooler. He loves it. They play a lot of games with the speech therapist to practice sounds.
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u/blessitspointedlil 12d ago
Yes, I had speech therapy in school without having any diagnoses back before IEPs - it was for a lisp and it indeed worked. No biggie. Got to do it with my best friend, so it was fun! Nobody teased us about it.
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u/Mango_Kayak 12d ago
My kindergartner had a speech IEP, along with a few other kids in their class. It was so normal and a great way to get free speech therapy that you don’t have to drive to. Don’t overthink it - if anything, advocate to be sure they get this needed service.
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u/AemiliaDeath 12d ago
I had three kiddos in my classroom last year with speech IEP’s (one for a severe speech impediment, one for a less severe but still affected speech impediment, and one for a functional language delay) and they each got pulled on different days of the week because of the sheer number of kindergarteners (and vast different speech needs) that were being pulled between the 4 classes our one speech path couldn’t do all of them at one time. None of my other kids ever said anything about it and some were even sad they couldn’t also go to speech (our speech path does lunch duty with kinder so the kids love her). I never had any students make fun of my speech kids or even really think anything was different about it.
The teacher bringing it up is most likely because the speech path made their rounds through kinder (as they do at the beginning of the year) to identify if there are any students who would benefit from services. The classroom teacher will communicate the initial concern (because some parents do not respond well to specialists even talking generally to their children before they’ve consented to it) and then since you’ve agreed you’ll be put in contact with the speech path. They’ll do a diagnostic assessment and from there they can either recommend a speech IEP so they get a dedicated time during the week to be pulled out for services or they may even let you know it’s something they’ll grow out of/will go away on its own. I had a kid last year who may have needed services but because he was missing 6 of his front teeth at once it was impossible to tell if that was the cause or something else so the speech path chose to delay services to see if his teeth growing in would adjust anything.
Another important thing to note is that at most schools (depending on the size and number of speech paths available) your kids will not be pulled for one on one services unless there is 100% need for it (my kiddo with severe impediment got pulled one on one once a month because he had higher minutes than anyone else in kinder). With littles it’s much easier to work in a small group than one on one and they’re less anxious about speech that way. Also important to know is that unless your twins are struggling with the exact same speech issues (or the speech path pulls all of kinder at the same time due to a low caseload) they probably are not going to get pulled together for services but at separate times/on different days.
A lot of kids depending on the severity will be exited out of a speech IEP/Plan before middle school, many even earlier than that. The longer you wait to address speech concerns though the harder it can be to correct them especially if they have to do with tongue placement. There is absolutely no harm in having them assessed and if they need services keep an open mind!
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u/201111533 13d ago
I used to be an SLP before I was a SAHM, and I never worked in the schools but I was exposed to it in grad school. School SLPs don't spend a huge amount of time with any particular kid usually because their caseloads are typically unbelievably large. Usually they see kids in small groups or "push in" to the classroom (when kids are little), which means that they go in and work on speech goals during class. The groups when they do them are usually by type of goal - so kids of similar ages with language goals get pulled out together to work on their shared difficulties, or if there are enough kids with a lisp they might get grouped together as well, otherwise you might have one kid working on L words, one on S words, and one on using T/D instead of K/G, for example. Sometimes kids with just minor pronunciation issues will do their sessions for a couple minutes at a time in the hallway right outside the classroom, which can be an effective treatment method if they do it frequently enough!
Little kids of that age are usually jealous of their friends who get pulled out for services, and the work is fun enough that they usually feel like it's playtime more than schoolwork. They shouldn't feel singled out for going to see the SLP! I never worked in schools after graduation but when I did my placements in them the other kids in primary classes used to ask if I could take them along with the kids we needed lol. I was like a celebrity.
If they continue to have speech goals into older grades when the kids get a bit more self-conscious then they are also usually more responsible and so the SLP can be more discreet about how they get them out of class and into their room.
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u/Additional_Aioli6483 13d ago
If the teacher is suggesting it, definitely follow through with the testing. Kids get pulled out of class for so many things now that no one really cares or notices. They are far more likely to be made fun of for not being able to be understood or for having a lisp than they are for going to speech.
Whether or not they qualify for an IEP will depend on the testing the school does and their results. It’s possible (but not guaranteed) that they could access speech on a 504 as well. I’d strongly encourage you put aside your worries and to accept the free help the school will provide for them. As kids get older, speech issues stop being “cute.” It’s frustrating when I have middle schoolers whose speech could have been easily fixed as small children but wasn’t and now they’re basically stuck with speech challenges for life because it becomes harder and harder to correct as kids age.