Getting What Your Child Needs · Related Services

How to Get Speech Therapy Added to Your Child’s IEP

Speech-language therapy is one of the most commonly needed and most frequently undersupplied related services in special education. Schools often offer the minimum, 20 or 30 minutes per week, when a child needs significantly more. Here’s how to build the case for speech therapy and make a request the school has to respond to seriously.

When Is Speech-Language Therapy Appropriate Under IDEA?

Speech-language pathology (SLP) services are a related service under IDEA, which means they must be provided when they’re necessary for a child to benefit from their education. Eligibility for SLP services depends on a speech-language evaluation demonstrating that the child has a qualifying communication disorder that adversely affects educational performance.

SLP services may be appropriate when a child has:

• An articulation disorder (difficulty producing speech sounds correctly)
• A language disorder, difficulty understanding language (receptive) or expressing themselves (expressive)
• A fluency disorder (stuttering or cluttering)
• A voice disorder
• Social communication (pragmatic language) difficulties, common in autism
• Auditory processing difficulties affecting language comprehension
• Literacy-related language deficits, many reading and writing difficulties have a language foundation

Step 1: Request a Speech-Language Evaluation

If your child hasn’t been evaluated by a speech-language pathologist, that’s the first step. Make a written request for a speech-language evaluation as part of an IEP evaluation or independent evaluation.

Your request should reference specific concerns you’ve observed: difficulty being understood, struggles following multi-step directions, limited vocabulary compared to peers, reading/writing difficulties with a language component, or social communication challenges.

If the school declines to include SLP in the evaluation scope, ask for their reasoning in writing and consider a private SLP evaluation to establish the need independently.

Step 2: Understand What the Evaluation Says

SLP evaluations use standardized tests with age-referenced scores. Key things to look for:

• Standard scores below 85 (more than one standard deviation below average) indicate significant delays in the area tested
• Scores between 78–85 are often treated by schools as “within low average” and not requiring services, but the educational impact test under IDEA is a separate question
• Discrepancies between cognitive scores and language scores indicate that the child is capable of higher language performance than they’re currently demonstrating
• Pragmatic language or social communication scores, these are frequently omitted from school evaluations but critical for children with autism or social difficulties

Step 3: Connect Language Skills to Educational Impact

The eligibility question isn’t just “does my child have a language delay”, it’s “does this delay adversely affect their educational performance?” When making the case for SLP services, document specific educational impacts:

• ✓Difficulty understanding and following directions in class
• ✓Inability to express ideas in writing at grade level
• ✓Reading comprehension difficulties linked to weak vocabulary or language processing
• ✓Social isolation or difficulty participating in group activities due to communication differences
• ✓Difficulty communicating with teachers and peers effectively

Step 4: If the School Offers Too Little

The most common SLP dispute isn’t about whether therapy is provided, it’s about whether it’s provided at sufficient intensity. “30 minutes once per week” is the default offer at many schools. Research on language intervention consistently shows that more intensive therapy (2–3 sessions per week) produces better outcomes for children with moderate to severe delays.

When requesting more SLP services:

• Ask what the school’s own SLP recommends, not just what’s in the IEP (these are sometimes different)
• Reference the severity of the delay as shown in evaluation scores
• Bring private SLP evaluation results if you have them
• Ask the team: “Is this amount of service sufficient to meaningfully close the gap between [child]’s current language skills and what’s needed for educational success?”

What If the School Denies SLP Services Entirely?

See what to do when the school says your child doesn’t qualify, the same process applies to individual service denials. Request the denial in writing (Prior Written Notice), consider requesting an IEE from an independent SLP, and if warranted, pursue the formal dispute process.