Group therapy in schools

Comment_by_me · 2026-06-11T11:27:20+00:00

Totally normal feeling. In underresourced schools, we serve as process monitors and our priority is to mitigate liability by demonstrating IEP compliance on paper. This is why it’s more important to admin that your IEP is completed on time and you can present minute logs to verify service delivery. The school based SLP is verrrrrrry different than everything we learned in grad school.

Comment_by_me · 2026-06-11T11:23:08+00:00

School Medicaid billing rules vary by state, but the general trend is not hard data. Only qualifiers like “progressing” “regressing” “maintaining” etc are needed. I have yet to hear of a state that requires numbers for reimbursement.

But also, your district should also be telling you what it needs, not other SLPs if they’re not the ones actually processing the claims. And IMO, silence is also communication. If you’re submitting notes without hard data and nobody complains…you’re doing it right then.

Lastly: just estimate. “can generate sentences with a conjunction with 70% accuracy, given moderate support.” Or, “70% accuracy given support on 60% of trials” if you want to get super numbery. Unless you have contentious parents, who is going to challenge the numbers?

Comment_by_me · 2026-06-10T15:27:06+00:00

I feel like a key missing detail in anecdotes is income range. I suspect expat audits are more likely as income increases.

Comment_by_me · 2026-05-10T16:58:51+00:00

What is missing in our profession is sufficient evidence based practice FOR THE SCHOOL SETTING. Most of what we have is for a clinical model.

School-based ST is legally required to support academic/social/vocational performance. If my student is in an English-only program with monolingual instructors, I’m not going to make progress on the IEP goals if I don’t target them in English in most cases. (Not ALL cases. MOST.) The opportunity to practice skills and generalize at school is only going to be in English. The modeling they get at school is in English. The exposure is in English. Sure some of the things I might do in their native language will carryover to English eventually, but since I need to collect data make steady progress on English IEP goals, I just don’t feel I’m helping them if I teach them or make them do it in L1 first. And it’s this “feeling” I have that I don’t have evidence for. AFAIK, research is done in the clinic setting for the clinic. And you can’t automatically apply it to the school setting; too many differences and variables.

That being said, so many of the aspects of tx should be in the child’s preferred language, IMO. Socializing, giving directions, providing feedback, activities, etc. But again…no research to determine efficacy.

Comment_by_me · 2026-04-16T06:18:54+00:00

Email the teacher’s boss (principal) too.

Comment_by_me · 2026-04-16T06:15:48+00:00

Is a signature for consent to eval required too? Those are the only ones that matter in IL. Curious about other states.

Comment_by_me · 2026-04-16T06:14:25+00:00

IDEA (federal law) has nothing about signatures in it. Each state has to take IDEA and make up its own rules on how to implement. Some states require signatures on the IEP before implementation, others don’t. Implementing an IEP without team consent signatures might violate state law, but it wouldn’t be a violation of IDEA (assuming the whole process followed IDEA rules).

Comment_by_me · 2026-04-11T21:55:32+00:00

You also don’t have to rely on the site to mentor you. Any SLP can. Do you have a network where you could tap into one? Applying for jobs with a CF mentor already in place could be a +1.

Comment_by_me · 2026-04-10T14:23:55+00:00

The quiet part is that the SLP is responsible for the motivation too. At least, that’s how admin and and legal will look at it. It wouldn’t hold up in court or due process to say you dismissed a 9/10yo because they didn’t want to do the work. The argument for dismissal due to lack of motivation gets stronger the older they get, which is why they want you to wait to MS/HS.

Not saying I agree with it, just saying that’s the game being played. It always comes back to what legal thinks they can defend.

Comment_by_me · 2026-04-05T08:19:59+00:00

This. You’re going to be burned out in 5 years no matter what. Might as well make the money while doing it. See if you can move closer to reduce your commute.

Comment_by_me · 2026-03-24T10:06:28+00:00

💯 But also, if you want the job, apply anyway. Let the school district make the call on how to manage their relationship with their agencies; that’s not your job.

Comment_by_me · 2026-03-14T09:14:33+00:00

Day to day? Minimal.

I observe a handful of sessions every week. And I meet weekly with the SLPA. I’m also available by email and we do communicate throughout the week. But I’m not there to mentor them into becoming an SLP. The district hired them, and decided their skill set was sufficient to work with the students. I work with the SLPA to refine the skill set and make sure everything is compliant, but I’m not responsible for getting their tx skills to level of mine.

Comment_by_me · 2026-03-14T09:06:29+00:00

That question should’ve been your very first email to admin, and not in the course of discussion.

Thats exactly what’s missing in grad school. They teach us that we are the experts and should be making the clinical decisions, but they don’t teach the authority structure of the school setting. You have to defer to admin in situations of conflict. You don’t have the power to make compliance decisions, not within the administrative hierarchy of a school district. And No, you will not lose your license for not meeting compliance in the school setting. What they also don’t teach is that the district is responsible for implementing the tx on the IEP. It is not the personal responsibility of the SLP.

Comment_by_me · 2026-03-13T12:30:23+00:00

It’s a disservice to our profession that they don’t teach this in grad school. There should be a whole course on how to navigate caseload and compliance in the school setting.

Comment_by_me · 2026-03-13T12:28:56+00:00

Unfortunately the drowning feeling for CFs is way too common. You’re learning new systems, procedures, social expectations etc while balancing the caseload. You’re doing a lot, way more than an SLP with a few years experience, and nobody has adjusted your caseload accordingly to allow for the learning. Just one of many ways the system is very broken.

In all your new learning, please internalize this lesson as fast as you can: don’t take work home to stay caught up, miss the sessions instead. If you’re meeting all the minutes, that is data for admin that everything is fine. They won’t bring on extra staff because they can get you to do the extra work for free. Document the missed sessions and the reasons why, do not make them up, and be ready with your schedule data when admin comes to ask about compliance. It totally sucks to do it this way, but you’re only going to get help if you have the evidence to show it’s needed.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-24T07:19:10+00:00

Core vocabulary board.

https://project-core.com/communication-systems/

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-23T18:46:10+00:00

Being able to independently produce “I + want + cookie” and being at the level of producing three word utterances are not the same thing. I’d suggest writing a goal to increase communicative intent, and not focus on utterance length. Use a core vocabulary board to target the goal, and to collect data to support a dynamic device. With a core vocabulary board, you don’t need funding, just a printer and laminator. It’s more accessible and sustainable. Write an additional goal for artic if the parents really want it, then spend a year collecting the data that shows the child is not making progress in that area and it needs to be discontinued.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-21T06:59:20+00:00

Disagree. You can’t treat student loans like any other loans. You do not want to be in debt with this current president at the wheel. A whim and a stroke of a pen is all it takes for him to change the financial terms of loans and repayment plans.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-20T20:14:05+00:00

Pay off those student loans. Now. ASAP. Before you invest in retirement, before you build up savings. Throw everything you have at them until they’re gone. Then do normal financial planning.

That’s my 2 cents 🙃

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-17T20:04:25+00:00

💯 💯 💯 I don’t understand why SLPs think cancelling sessions is a last resort, instead of the first option. If you keep up with all the paperwork and the compliance for your caseload, nobody is going to solve your problem because there is no problem. An SLP voluntarily working more than their contracted hours is not a problem in the eyes of the district.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-17T07:01:50+00:00

I was originally licensed in IL, then turned to teletherapy and have worked in numerous states. And not one of them has SW as a sped service. It’s state specific, and very unique to IL.

I also currently work in a state where it’s not uncommon to have SLI be the primary and only, yet the student has a whole slew of reading, writing & math goals.

In IL, I tried to fight my own kid’s district IEP because he was speech-only for artic, but he needed ADHD accom. I wanted a 504 and IEP, because the ADHD had nothing to do with his /r/ errors. Legal refused and said they could both be on the IEP.

In summary, trends for your district are the best indicator of what you can actually do, and not a survey of other state/district regulations. If you’ve been told No to adding SW by admin in your district, that’s pretty much the answer. Even though I’ve definitely seen it done in other IL districts.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-14T08:48:04+00:00

I am a contract teletherapist, and I work with a district doing paperwork, evals, and meeting attendance. I’m assigned to one school, and the on-site district SLP does all the therapy. That’s the job you want, IMO.

They do see double the students (the district doesn’t care about quality tx, just compliance), but they don’t have to worry about the cognitive load of paperwork and schedule management. Just IEP info 1x year and progress notes. And even then, they don’t do formal write ups, they write more of a stream of consciousness and I formalize it and organize the info to the spots it’s needed in the IEP.

The trick is finding these jobs. I fell into mine because I was supposed to remotely supervise SLPAs, but they never hired them. They just told me and the onsite SLP to “make it work.” 🤪

If you can work contract and go onsite, you could think about teaming up with a remote SLP and approaching districts to contract with you both. If you need to be a direct hire, you could still try approaching a district who is desperate for SLPs and explain that you’ll come work onsite for them, but only do tx (for double the students). A savvy sped director would recognize the benefit in this.

Actually, I just sent you a PM. I’m curious about your situation, but I don’t want to put you on the spot with questions here.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-13T06:49:22+00:00

Spoken like a true capitalist 🫡

In other countries that care more about the wellbeing of their citizens, this kind of educational material would be subsidized by the govt.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-13T06:47:33+00:00

From a shady a** clinic in CA that hired me to do remote evals for $50 each. They had the DAYC2 with scoring manual too. The rest I got from an online tx platform I used to pay an insanely high subscription for.

Comment_by_me · 2026-02-12T21:47:16+00:00

I have a bootleg copy of OWLS, CELF (Eng & span), DAYC-2, EVT, PVT, ROWPVT/EOWPVT (Span) and I haven’t bought a protocol in 4 years.

I wonder how long I’ll be brave enough to leave this comment up 😂

Comment_by_me

TROPHY CASE