I was just contacted by a co-worker. She has been providing services to a Spanish-English 5 year old. (He was a monolingual Spanish-speaker until starting preschool during August 2006. He qualified for services based upon deviation from his speech community, etc. so I am confident an appropriate eligibility determination was made.)
Anyway, she called me because she no longer has concerns, is contemplating dismissal and wanted a second opinion. The language of instruction in his regular education preschool (5 full days a week) and speech therapy has been English. However, the SLP has interspersed and used Spanish words and phrases, but has faded them as he has acquired more English. I went to observe him and his speech was not impacting his ability to be understood by teachers and peers and/or use language to communicate with them in the classroom for educational purposes. The kicker is that according the the Spanish-speaking parent educator, the mother reported she still has concerns with his Spanish. I am interested in getting some opinions about the appropriateness of dismissing and anticipate this might spark some interest and controversy. However, we work in the public schools, so please give insight from that perspective. Respectfully submitted 4/12/07.
Joy
Comments
I would want to know what the parents concerns are. I work in the public schools and see this scenario. The child may still be evidencing some difficulties that are developmentally appropriate. From the parents perspective, the child may still have difficulty with /r/ and/or /rr/ production and may exhibit some developmental morphological and/or syntical errors. I hear parents express concern that the neighbor's child or their other children never had this problem at this age and believe it is "not normal".
If an SLP trained in ELL assessment and intervention provided the services and followed district guidelines, I would provide the parents with recommendations for working with their child at home. If their concerns continued, then I would ask for an evaluation after a designated amount of time (probably nto more than 6 months).
From what you've described it sounds as though there is not an education need for services and I'm assuming the child has mastered his goals and objectives. If the goals were written to indicate that he must master them in English and Spanish and he has not done so, then I think the SLP might want to revisit the question of dismissal.
Posted by: Becky | April 12, 2007 3:44 PM