It can be incredibly frustrating to know your child is struggling with communication, go through a school evaluation, and then be told they don’t qualify for speech therapy.Sometimes parents walk away from that meeting wondering: If my child has a language delay, how can the school say they don’t need speech therapy?
The answer is that school-based and private speech therapy are working under two different sets of rules. A child can have a very real communication need and benefit from speech therapy without meeting California’s criteria for special education.
What does a child need to qualify for school speech therapy in California?
For a language disorder, California has specific eligibility criteria. In general, the team needs demonstrate three things:
1. There needs to be evidence of a disability.
For receptive or expressive language, California law looks for performance at least 1.5 standard deviations below the mean, or below the seventh percentile, on two or more standardized measures in areas such as vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, or social use of language.
There are exceptions when standardized testing isn’t appropriate, and an evaluation should never come down to a single test score. But the important point is that doing poorly on one language test does not automatically establish special education eligibility.
Articulation eligibility works a little differently. There isn’t a specific percentile cutoff. Instead, the school considers whether a child’s speech is significantly harder to understand or different from what’s expected for their age, and whether it affects their education. A child can have speech sounds that need work without necessarily qualifying for school-based services.
2. The disability needs to affect the child’s educational performance.
Something to keep in mind is that educational impact does not just mean grades.
Communication difficulties can affect a child’s ability to participate in classroom discussions, follow directions, explain what they know, interact with peers, work in groups, advocate for themselves, manage classroom routines, or access other parts of school life.
A child does not necessarily need to be failing academically for a communication disorder to have an educational impact.
3. The child must need special education and related services because of that disability.
This requirement can be particularly confusing for families.
Identifying a weakness is not the same thing as establishing eligibility for special education. The team also has to determine that the child’s difficulties cannot be adequately addressed without special education and related services.
That means a child might have weaker-than-expected language skills and still not qualify for an IEP if the team determines that the child can access and make appropriate progress in school without special education.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the parent was wrong to be concerned, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the child wouldn’t benefit from speech therapy. It simply means the child did not meet the particular legal standard for school-based special education.
This is where FAPE comes in. Public schools are required to provide eligible students with a Free Appropriate Public Education, usually shortened to FAPE.
The word appropriate is important. FAPE does not mean that a school has to provide every service that might help a child, the maximum amount of therapy possible, or the program that would produce the very best possible outcome. Nor does “appropriate”mean bare minimum. The U.S. Supreme Court has said that an IEP must be reasonably calculated to allow a child to make progress that is appropriate in light of that particular child’s circumstances.
Ultimately, the question school professionals ask is, “Does this child have a disability that adversely affects their education and requires special education and related services in order for the school to provide an appropriate education?”
| Primary purpose | Help an eligible student access and make appropriate progress in their education | Address communication needs that are important to the child and family |
| Eligibility required? | Yes. The child must meet special education eligibility requirements | No special education eligibility required |
| Does there need to be educational impact? | Yes | No |
| Does the child need to be struggling academically? | No. Educational performance includes functional needs, not just grades | No |
| Can a child receive therapy for a milder difficulty? | Sometimes, but only if the child meets the requirements for special education services | Yes |
| Who determines goals? | The IEP team, including the parent | Family and SLP together |
| Where does therapy happen? | Within the child’s educational program | Depending on the practice: clinic, home, community, school/daycare, or virtually |
| What can therapy address? | Needs related to the child’s access to and progress in their education | A broader range of communication concerns and family priorities |
| Cost to families | Free for eligible students as part of FAPE | Paid privately, through insurance when applicable, or through other funding sources |
Neither one is inherently better. School speech therapy and private speech therapy have different jobs.
School-based SLPs work within special education law and the educational system. Their role isn’t to treat every communication weakness a child has. Their role is to help provide FAPE to students whose disabilities require special education and related services.
Private practice gives us considerably more flexibility. We don’t have to establish special education eligibility before deciding that something is worth working on. We can address a skill because it’s frustrating a child, affecting friendships, making family life harder, limiting independence, or simply because the child and family would like communication to feel easier.
In private practice we can also choose goals based on what matters most to that particular child and family, even when those needs don’t rise to the level required for an IEP. Sometimes a child appropriately receives both.
The important thing to remember is that “doesn’t qualify for school speech therapy” and “doesn’t have a communication need” are not the same statement. A school evaluation answers a specific question about eligibility for special education, while a private evaluation can answer a broader one: How is communication going for this child, and is there anything we can do to make it easier?
