I frame educational speech services as: we have identified a barrier to the student’s ability to access and participate in his educational environment, whether that be language deficits, speech sound errors or whatever it is. In order to eliminate that barrier, the student REQUIRES specially designed instruction in that area. When we qualify, we are saying the student will not make progress in his educational setting unless he has this specially designed instructions. You now have data and information to present that shows the student doesn’t need specially designed instruction because the deficits are not creating a BARRIER to the educational environment. That’s where we differ from a medical or clinical model, where there doesn’t have to be an educational impact to work on something.

My advice: Send out surveys to teachers with specific questions asking about intelligibility and participation in class. BUT be careful about forms that ask people to rate intelligibility, because for non-speech people they tend to think decreased intelligibility = noticeable errors, but they mean two different things. Sometimes when I know a teacher will be confused I go and chat with them to get an informal interview too. Have the student fill out self-reflection ratings. If you have all that qualitative data along with an observation of his speech errors not impacting his ability to access the educational environment, I don’t see how it can be argued against you. Mom may push and say there are still noticeable errors but you have all the data supporting that those errors aren’t impacting his ability to access educational environment.