Student Referral Process: Step 1

Here is a document we use as part of the initial teacher referral when a student needs more support or problem solving in the classroom.

At our district, the teacher provides THIS documentation to the Student Assistance Team (SAT) Committee (made up of the school psych, a sped teacher, me (SLP), a general education teacher, and the title teacher) as well as the Additional Teacher Input Form (given to any additional teachers whose instruction is impacted by the area of concern--e.g., specials teachers, co-grade teachers). They also send home a Parent Information form, which most parents bring to the first meeting of the SAT team.

Our SAT committee meets (with the parent), and discusses the concerns, brainstorms interventions/supports to put into place, and decide what data will be collected and by whom. We set the next meeting date.....and see what works (and what doesn't!). This may eventually lead to testing the student for special education verifications. 
(Free download at my TpT store HERE) 

...just saw the typo in 'blogspot'(my fingers type that SO often, but I usually catch it!)

Some students in this process end up having language difficulties that the teacher couldn't 'put her finger on.' Others end up having artic concerns in addition to classroom concerns. We continue the process, and I usually jump into speech-language Response to Intervention (parent permission free download HERE). 




If there is just an articulation concern, we "skip" the SAT committee and run right to me (!). That includes a separate form...coming soon in a follow up blog post!
Look forward to: 
*Artic referral
*Stuttering referral
*Language referral (listening, speaking, social skills)

I hope this helps those of you SLPs out there who wear as many "Hats" as I do at school! What are your other (non-therapy) responsibilities?

Push In Notes and Data

I often find myself taking data within the classroom setting for social skills, classroom skills, and executive functioning skills such as: 

--on-task/attending 

--interrupting/blurting

--asking for help

--following teacher directions accurately

--following multiple-step directions

--effectively organizing 

--prioritizing 

--getting right to work after a direction has been given

--volunteering answers

--initiating conversations and interactions appropriately

-- conversational turns 

I also collect classroom data for stuttering and articulation for those students who have very high skills and are needing to generalize to other settings (e.g., classroom, lunchroom, recess, center time, specials classes).  

I have the opportunity to co-teach a small life-skills focused English class at the high school level. I do several 15-minute 'walk throughs' in second and third grade. I co-teach small group 3rd grade writing/reading with the resource teacher. For each of these settings I have found Push In notes pages helpful and effective. 

I find it most effective to have a clipboard with 1 page per student with a classroom behavior. This way, data collection is as simple as grabbing my clipboard and walking into a classroom. 

You can download these pages free at my TpT store HERE

Parent Permission for RtI

Here's a form that has been really handy! You can download it free off my TpT page HERE. 

This is a quick way to get parent permission to begin RtI (response to intervention) after you receive a teacher referral and do a quick screening.  The first page is a check-box format for the area of concern/referral (e.g., artic, social skills, receptive/expressive language) written in parent-friendly terms. The second/back page explains more in depth about the RtI process.

Assessment Results Free Printable

 My first free printable (let's try this!), is the handout I use at MDT meetings to share testing results with parents.
Speech Language Assessment Results Handout

Your free download looks like this. You can input your own name and school/district information. Download in .doc format.

This has a basic bell-curve format, and I draw lines to indicate where the student scored. Some of these get a lot of additional information written in (e.g., I might add social skills notes, brief on-task classroom observations, or articulation sounds in error--though I usually give out a Iowa Nebraska norms sheet for that). I make an original with my notes, then make photocopies for the other team members. When I file my testing protocols and notes, I often have this page be my 'cover page,' paperclipped to the top of the pile and filed right behind my copy of the MDT report.

This one has a lot less information, due to the many meetings we had already had on this student.

Assessment results handout clipped on top of other assessment protocols.

I find that parents (and teachers!) appreciate the visual format of this handout. They also seem to appreciate that it is quick to read and interpret, and that I have summarized all the most important information for them.

During the meeting, I explain the results, using this as my visual, and always let them know that what we talk about will be typed up with additional details into a formal report that they can share with their pediatrician, childcare providers, other out-of-school therapists, etc. I love that I'm not just reading any part of the report, so the information comes out in a more conversational way and I can read the parents' reactions/nonverbals.

Get it HERE, through TeachersPayTeachers (free download).

Speech Language Assessment Results Handout