Eligibility

[Beverly McEntire]

My state, Wyoming, has proposed changes in eligibility criteria for language therapy in the schools. The new eligibility criteria state that students must be 1.75 standardized deviations below the mean on standardized assessments. We are being told that this brings us in line with eligibility criteria in the rest of the nation. I have done some searching, and the states I have checked in the Western part of the nation all seem to be 1.5 SD below the mean. Where can I find the documentation of national trends? Also, can anyone help with justificiation for why eligibility should be 1.5, as opposed to 1.75 SD below?

[perrmau]

I live in Wisconsin. Our district's eligibility criteria is set at 1.75 SD below the mean.

[Beverly McEntire]

Thank-you for the information. I am hoping there are more states that do not have such severe cut-offs.

[quilter]

I recently began working in Minnesota and our criteria is 2 standard deviations from the mean. Students with major articulation problems are not qualifying even though I can't understand a word they are saying and have to have the Mom translate for me. I used to live in Wisconsin. I think the 1.75 standard deviation is better.

[marycl]

In Florida, we begin looking at a child's eligibility when the scores are more than 1.5 SD below the mean. Above a SS of 77 the student is not considered eligible for services. If the issue is language, we continue to need a psychological eval so that we can compare the language SS on either two global assessments or 1 global and a measure of both receptive vocabulary and expressive vocabulary to the performance score on the psych.

[Beverly McEntire]

Thank-you everyone for your responses so far.

[Karen2]

I think if you check with your state, the eligibility is a "guideline" and not a law. If so, you can establish different guidelines in your district. In Texas we use a standard score of 77 to qualify for language and a 7%ile for artic. However, we are allowed to take a 3rd grader in the Spring or other older kids to work on /r/ or /s/, even if the student has no other errors. We can also look at intelligibility. If the student's speech is difficult to understand but the %ile is above 7, we can qualify the student. Sometimes we must use professional judgment.

[Karen2]

Mary from Florida:
Please explain about doing psychological testing to compare scores and determine eligibility.

[cagedbird]

In AR, we use 1.5 SD for artic, but there are always exceptions.
IDEA says a student shall be provided services if the disability is affecting their academics. This would include the younger ages learning phonemes/phonemic awareness, early sight words.
If they cannot have their needs met because the teachers cannot understand them during conversations tasks, if they are embarrassed to talk with peers or teachers due to their arti skills (or lack of), etc., etc., etc.

Don't be afraid to advocate for your children !

[Beverly McEntire]

Thank-you! I completely agree about advocating for my students! We have a meeting with our director of special education coming up to disucuss this more. He is proposing to cut a position, and have me cover what are currently two positions, because he feels our caseloads will be reduced. I appreciate everyone's input.

[megherditch]

In my school district,locaed in CA. we qualify at 1.5 SD, standard scores below 85. When the psychologist comes up with her findings, she has an IQ score and when the SLP evel is scored the low score may match the same low IQ, or both are in the same range???, anyway it shows that for that child's IQ his language scores are consistent with his ability. So he is working within his normal (although los) range! Ithink his is how it was explained to me!

[evawd]

Would you be able to post the rating scale that you mention?

[Expert]

Just an observation...ASHA best practices does not recommend cognitive referencing-that is comparing language scores to IQ scores-especially in the verbal IQ range you are measuring the same thing twice. I find that children who score at just below or at the low end of the normal range are significantly handicapped educationally. Most of the criteria I have seen in MD. includes a rating scale to describe educational impact. Some also weight the scale to assist in establishing eligibility. But as someone who has been in due process hearings and has more to come, be sure you can defend whatever position you take regarding providing services or not-and policy does not cover it.

[sansonela]

I also am interested in this rating scale.
Please send to sansonela@warrencor3.k12.mo.us.
Thanks.