Speech Or Language Impairment (SLI) Eligibility Criteria

California Education Code, Section 56333: 

A student shall be assessed as having a language or speech disorder which makes him or her eligible for special education and related services when he or she demonstrates difficulty understanding or using spoken language to such an extent that it adversely affects his or her educational performance and cannot be corrected without special education and related services. Criteria: All elements listed below must be determined to establish eligibility. 

1. The student’s disorder, based on an assessment by a language, speech and hearing specialist, meets one or more of the following criteria: 

a. Articulation disorder 

   The student displays reduced intelligibility or inability to use the speech mechanism which significantly interferes with communication and attracts adverse attention. Significant interference occurs when the production of multiple speech sounds on a developmental scale of articulation competency is below that expected for a student’s chronological age or developmental level. 

i) The student does not meet the criteria for an articulation disorder if the sole assessed disability is an abnormal swallowing pattern. 

b. Abnormal voice. A student has an abnormal voice characterized by persistent, defective voice quality, pitch or loudness. 

c. Fluency disorders. The flow of verbal expression including rate and rhythm adversely affects communication between student and listener. d. Language disorder when both of the following criteria are met: 

i) Using more than one assessment procedure, the student scores at least 1.5 standard deviations below the mean, or below the 7th percentile, for his or her chronological age or developmental level on tests in one or more of the following areas of language development: morphology, syntax, semantics, or pragmatics. When standardized tests are considered invalid for a specific student, the expected language performance level shall be determined by alternative means as specified on the assessment plan

ii) The student displays inappropriate or inadequate usage of expressive language as measured on a representative spontaneous language sample of a minimum of fifty utterances. 

2. The disorder is not due to unfamiliarity with English. 

3. The disorder adversely affects the student’s educational performance, and requires special education to meet the student’s needs.