14. Dismissal / Exits

ALL EXPERTS received an inquiry from a mother over special education dismissal concerns she had with her son, and a reply was given by Expert Richard Taylor  (3/29/2010).  Mr. Taylor explained the mother had a right to request dismissal from special education though the school might contest it.  Jana wrote: “My son is 12 years old, [...]

Middle School Speech Therapy Exit

The SLP is a member of the IEP team, and can influence placement and retention decisions.  They are group decisions, not ones made by individuals, and a vote is taken.  Speech therapists can speak up and advocate for dismissal. A middle school speech pathologist had a 6th grade girl with a persistent /r/ problem.  She [...]

Middle School SLP Exits

Elementary school is where basic skills characterize special education — reading, language, speech, computation, writing. Special education programs are akin to Response To Intervention. If the programs are effective, non-disabled children in time should be dismissed. Children with functional articulation problems should be coming out of speech. Moderate-to-severe language cases should be exited if they [...]

Managing SLP Exits

A school speech-language pathologist worked in a middle school on a one-year plan to exit children from special education.  During the year, 26 pupils were in the caseload. One child had a speech-only IEP.  Three children transferred in from other schools, and two of the three transferred out.  Twelve of the 26 children were minority [...]

2. Dismissal / Exits

Strategic Eligibility Management (cf. 4. SLP Caseloads) or SEM is a system designed to regulate special education enrollments to prevent misidentification and work overload. As a principled system, it centers around the flow of eligibility determinations from the time of identification to that of disqualification. Practitioners can develop and improve skills to manage their caseloads [...]

1. Dismissal / Exits

We start off on the problem of exiting children from special education with an eye towards speech-language pathology. Whereas IDEA 2004 and its derivative regulations give some attention to misidentification of at-risk children at the point of placement, there is virtually no national spotlight on the neglected topic of helping at-risk children GET OUT of [...]

Exits at 3-Year Reevaluation

For SLPs the three-year reevaluation under IDEA 2004 should be a landmark for evaluating for dismissal. The same can be said for learning disabled children. However, IDEA weakens school responsibility to take a hard look at progress and disability status. Parents can waive their rights to the reevaulation of their children, and they often do. [...]

Exit Difficulties

In a give-and-take exchange over one parent’s efforts to exit her daughter, we see how difficult it can be for some parents (City Data). The mother (Pll) says: “Why is there so much red tape connected to pulling a child out of the IEP program? Maybe a educator can answer this for me. Does the [...]

13. SLP Dismissal / Exits

The “progress-in-the-general-curriculum” eligibility criterion has been in effect since the 1970s but it is never critically reviewed in its application. “In 1980, ASHA [ American Speech-Language Hearing Association ] sought and received clarification on this policy interpretation from the US Department of Education” (Kathleen Whitmire, 2002). Can a stutterer with good academic achievement be denied [...]

12. SLP Dismissal / Exits

Once a child is made eligible for school speech therapy, aggressive use of least restrictive environment (LRE) should begin immediately to move that child toward dismissal. Try to reduce service time, restrictions and workload in an ethical manner from the very beginning. DROP THE PULL-OUT MODEL A school speech therapist who does “pull out” treatment [...]