DOES MY CHILD NEED SPEECH THERAPY?

Brought to you by Your Special Education Department

Many parents are concerned about whether their children need to be referred to the PLT process for a speech and language screening.  Some children are fast to talk: some are slower. The California Code of Regulations Title 5, Section 3030 states a student must meet one or more of the following criteria for a student to be eligible for speech therapy:

ü Pupil's speech reduces intelligibility and significantly interferes with communication

ü Pupil’s speech attracts adverse attention

ü Production of sounds is below that expected for pupil’s age

ü Speech production adversely affects educational performance

So when should a student be able to produce different sounds? The following guidelines are provided by our Speech-Language Pathologists to assist you in determining if a speech assessment is warranted or not.

Age of Acquisition	Consonant Sounds
2-3	p, b, m, h, w, d, vowels
3-4	y, n, k, g, t, f (initial)
4-5	l (initial), th (voiced)
5-6	f (final), v, l (final), sh, ch, j
6-7	ng, s, z, consonant and vocalic r
8.5	Final age of sound acquisition

Most of the children in kindergarten, first, and second grade who are misarticulating these sounds, will correct their speech without intervention by a Speech-Language Pathologist. The awareness they gain from multisensory phonics programs and enriched language environments is frequently enough information for them to change their speech. The effect on communication will depend on the type, severity, and number of errors. Researchers found that the final age for acquiring the skills to articulate sounds is 8.5 years. This means that sound differences persisting past 8.5 years are not likely to spontaneously correct, and warrant further investigation by our special education department.