Speech Therapy services are provided to students who have been evaluated and diagnosed with a communication disorder, such as fluency (stuttering), an articulation impairment, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affects their educational performance and requires specially designed instruction from a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) to help the student make progress in the general education.
Voice Impairment: abnormal production and/or absences of vocal quality, pitch, loudness, resonance, and/or duration, which is inappropriate for an individual's age and/or sex
Articulation Impairment: atypical production of speech sounds characterized by substitutions, omissions, additions, or distortions that may interfere with intelligibility. characterized by sound errors or phonological errors
Fluency Impairment (Stuttering): an interruption in the flow of speaking characterized by atypical rate, rhythm, and repetitions in sounds, syllables, words, and phrases. This may be accompanied by excessive tension, struggle behavior, and secondary mannerisms.
Language Impairment: Impaired comprehension and/or use of spoken, written, and/or other symbol systems. The disorder may involve (1) the form of language (phonology, morphology, syntax), (2) the content of language (semantics), and/or (3) the function of language in communication (pragmatics) in any combination.
Speech Therapy is an instructional arrangement for providing services to students with an identified speech impairment and/or deemed eligible by the ARD committee by meeting the district and state eligibility guidelines. Speech therapy services are a support to the student’s general education and/or special education curriculum. A multi-level service delivery model is utilized in ILTexas to provide a range of options for meeting the needs of students with a Speech Impairment. When a student is eligible for speech-language therapy services, consideration is given to the type of programming that will best meet student needs in the least restrictive environment.
Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation - Licensing and Regulation for Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists, including Assistants in Speech-Language Pathology, and Interns in Speech-Language Pathology.
Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association - The Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association is a dynamic professional organization and is a recognized resource for speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and consumers in the state.
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association - The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is a professional, scientific, and credentialing association for 135,000 members and affiliates who are audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists.
ILTexas has full-time certified Speech-Language Pathologists and Speech-Language Pathologists Assistants who deliver services to students who exhibit speech and language impairment.
The following are the services they provide:
Case management of an assigned group of students that includes assessment, parent contact, liaison with classroom teachers, scheduling, and conducting ARDs.
Informal “screening” of teacher referrals for possible testing.
Informal assessment of students for possible qualification for speech services.
Formal assessment of students who may qualify for speech services.
ARD meetings for communication of evaluation results.
Speech Therapy sessions for individuals, groups, and classrooms.
RtI – supports, and consultation for all tiers of RtI
Provide speech and language services for social/pragmatic communication for students with severe disabilities.
Assistive/Augumentive Technology for non-verbal students.