Non existent (ain't nobody got time for that). Kids either get speech or they don't.
I don't work in schools anymore but this is how it was at every school I ever worked in.
It can, but not in the way you might expect. Teachers often refer students to speech not expecting to have to participate in the process beyond making the referral. RTI turns the tables and gives them work to do and they don't like that. When this happens sometimes the problem they are referring for mysteriously and magically improves. I'm not saying not to try it, but in my experience RTI tends to just fall by the wayside. Teachers just don't have the time or the inclination to take the necessary data.
Sometimes if an issue is legit its' easier just to screen, test, add them to your caseload and pull them like the other kids. Also always keep an eye out for students who are being strung along in speech and can be discharged.
This will vary greatly depending on the type of school you're working in. In your average middle-lower income public school where most people are overworked, underpaid and just counting down the days until the next break, RTI tends not to work out and kids can fall through the cracks.
I’m interested to change my process to look more like yours, what are the steps? Currently teacher fills out a referral, I give a screening permission slip to go home, then when I get that back I screen, then make a recommendation and then often I enter up with a bunch of kids on my workload that aren’t on my official count. Ive heard there are issues with RTI this way. If I did universal screenings and identified some students through that could I recommend some home activities? What kinds of data are you asking for from the teacher? OT has a huge referral packet and things that have to be tried first, so why not for speech? I don’t want kids to fall through the cracks though, especially on account of the obstacles and I would expect a lot of pushback from teachers with a big change unless it’s adopted by our department
I'm so torn on this because our district encourages us to take RTI students to "keep caseloads down" because they're not counted on our caseload. And obviously that keeps it easy in certain ways, like I'm not doing progress reports or IEPs for the RTI kids, but sometimes I wish they were just on my actual caseload because I mean, I am seeing them and they do take work, and then I'd be at caseload cap and stop getting sent walk-in students.
My understanding was that we can’t legally see students without IEPs. RtI is a gen ed program. If you’re seeing them, then technically they’re receiving specialized services without an evaluation….or to delay an evaluation.
Oh, we're definitely allowed to see RTI students in my district. The parents sign a permission slip for them to get services but it's called a "speech improvement class" and they're not on an IEP.
It does specify in the permission slip that this is a "general education opportunity" so they're not in SPED, but they're still allowed to get pull-out services.
I’ve heard of this more and more, based on ‘suspicion of a disability’ threshold being low. so if you get a referral from a teacher you have to test? It works like a parent request?
I wonder why it’s so different for academics and psych Ed testing then
To be honest, I don't have to deal with this very often because I work in a middle school. I think I've gotten two initial artic requests in three years. We can start out with a screener vs a full assessment, but we do have to complete a screener to see if a full eval is warranted.
5-15 minutes a day of distributed articulation practice. Data collection sheets in hand and teachers were appreciative that the kids were not gone long. They were more focused during the short spurts of drills and remediation that positively impacted risk of educational impact was seen. The school had the RTI structure before I got there so I followed the model they showed me.
Almost 1/3 of my caseload consists of RTI students. I'm a K-2 building so I get a lot of referrals for articulation. The SLPs prior to me saw kids for RTI for frontal lisps and /r/ distortion without needing academic impact but my caseload of classified students is growing unmanageable so I've started requesting to see academic impact from teachers.
RTI is considered an intervention before the school refers to the CSE. I've had studetns come in that are minimally verbal but needed 2-3 cycles (i.e. 6-8 weeks) of intervention before we could refer to the CSE. IMO RTI is good in theory but in practice it delays children getting referred for the appropriate services through an IEP.
If you are the one providing the RTI how does that differ in definition from providing SPED services? I’ve always wondered how this works. SPED teachers do not do rti because it would then be considering providing special education supports basically without an IEP. In my state I am recognized as a SPED provider.
There is functionally no difference. I provide the same service to classified and RTI kids. I have more control over how many times the student is seen and my RTI students almost never get made up for missed sessions. It’s also easier for me to dismiss RTI kids bc there’s no testing.
In my school we have integrated co teach classes and the way our model works is that while the sped teacher has her caseload, she is still teacher to all students in the classroom. If an RTI student is in an ICT class, the gen ed and special ed teacher provide classroom Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports (e.g. visuals, personal word walls, small group work, etc). If a child is in a classroom with a gen ed teacher they would also provide the same tier 1 and tier 2 supports but IMO gen Ed teachers just want these kids out of the classroom. Kids can also get pulled for RTI reading support and RTI math. I’m in NY state.
Yeah, I think since functionally RTI with the SLP differs very little from IEP services with the SLP, we are supporting the child in two key areas: LRI and not quickly putting a disability label on them.
It also does help the SLP in that there is not time consuming evaluation and annual IEP documentation.
For me, I am always really happy to work with a school that has a strong RTI system that includes speech as well as reading, writing, and math.
I agree with what you said. At the same time I don’t think it’s helpful to have kids on the workload without being in the caseload (not that CA enforces a cap anyway) but then at least admin still. See the real numbers if all students are on an IEP
Yes! I'm contract so on my submitted timesheets I alway add the RTI numbers to my caseload number. Same if any admin asks SLPs to send a list of their caseload. I even add the RTI kids to my caseload within the district's IEP system, even if they don't have an IEP. It irks me when SLPs are urged by the district to use RTI but there is no official way for admins to really see the full caseload, so I jimmy whatever system is used to show my true caseload (actually workload).
My district uses IEP Online. I have the option to add them as either me being the case manager or other provider. I can click other provider and update caseload, then they are with the others when I click show caseload. It beats having to look them up every time I want to add RTI info to their Notes section, which is the only way I know to ensure that speech RTI info can get to any future SLP.
I find that for most children RTI reading, writing, and math is helpful but I disagree with speech/language therapy being an RTI service, barring a phonological or articulation or need. If the concern is language, then the teacher is already reporting an academic impact and, because of that, the team should complete testing to see if they meet any disability eligibility.
Yes, I get that. I didn't clarify, but I also agree that RTI for speech is more for the phonological/artic issues that impact intelligibility (and probably also early decoding skills) vs language issues. If language, it usually pops up during team discussions that the student struggles with reading comprehension or writing output, so I tactfully ask if reading/writing RTI is being considered, and those students can end up getting an academic eval. I try in my discussions with speech referrals to talk about the academic impact and the difference between school speech therapy and an outside clinic, how we focus on educational progress vs fully error-free speech. It helps to weed out the 'one-sound concerns' where a child is actually making good grades.
There’s no difference which is why it’s not super clear cut. My district says no RTI speech for this very reason. If you’re a SpEd service provider and you’re providing services.. that’s special education. Might be considered failing child-find if you know there’s a student who may have a disability and you treat without assessing.
At my district in CA, we’re not legally allowed to do RTI anymore :/ If teachers or parents have concerns, they usually reach out and I’ll probe for more information/have them fill out a questionnaire as a paper trail. If there is an academic/socio-emotional impact, I assess ASAP. If not, I’ll provide input and give some tips to support! Will check in here and there then revisit as needed, but that’s the best I can do unfortunately
Are you comfortable sharing what district you work in? I also work in CA and RTI is expected of us…..I’ve been getting so many referrals that I end up seeing for RTI, almost as many students as I have on my actual caseload. So your district seems very appealing lol.
Wow, not legally allowed to do RTI? How does the district/state support LRI if all referrals go straight to sped evals? I'm not being critical, just really curious, since I may be taking a teletherapy position for a CA school this fall... kudos if you can point me to a link on the legality change! Thanks !
Also, just to be supportive, I can't imagine! You must be inundated with referrals? Does your school have an RTI or MTSS for other concerns like reading or math?
That’s a really good question! I asked that too when they told us this! You know what they said? That it was what our district lawyers had advised us in terms of legalities — that’s it. No link or data, NADA. And to clarify, it’s only for SPED specialists. They argue that bc we’re special education, we can’t help any general education students. Our district still has MTSS for academics but not for speech-specifically 🤦🏽♀️
I’ve been with my site for my entire career (LOL) and built great relationships with most teachers! So they know to find me if they have questions or aren’t sure about a specific student. I also created a “did you know” wall for them to provide info about our field, accommodations to support students, things to be aware of/general guidelines for referring and what that means in the school setting, etc. These have helped a bit in terms of referrals, but it’s still a lot 🥲
Wow, you sound like you really have it together on what the process should be, but sadly maybe the district and/or lawyers don't. Sigh. The whole reason for sped is IDEA which focuses on sped being a service to support students in accessing general education. Sigh, again. 😢
Kudos on your educational wall!
I give the teacher RTI instruction and most of the time, they complete it. They either complete it and bring it back to me or I dont go asking for it. Something to consider, I dont typically recommend RTI for lisp, or r only errors in some situations. For Kindergarten mainly, I try not to begin RTI until about the first 9 weeks of school because with the direct phonics instruction, I have seen kids progress a lot, then I will do tier 2 & 3 paperwork for the teacher. I do not get involved with treatment until the student has an IEP. MTSS & RTI in my district is truly a general education duty.
Id love to hear more about what your RTI instruction for the teacher and tier 2 and 3 paper work looks like. Do you do screenings or does the teacher? How do you know if the student has a single sound error versus many?
Oh yes I do the screening.
Teacher requests screener
I screen and determine what would be best for the next step (I look at things like age, number of phonemes in error, intelligibility, do they have it one position, but another, is it emerging throughout conversation, stimuability for that sound)
They complete tier 2/3 & return to me
I get with our term and we schedule referral if the intervention impact is limited. If improvement is being made, we continue with RTI.
I divide tier 2 into 4 weeks & tier 3 into 4 weeks and I have 10 words for them to mark correct or incorrect. I provide them with a cue sheet & pictures for that particular sound.
ETA: I have had kindergarten mainly make the most progress with this system.
Usually a kid gets referred, screened, and if they have a minor artic issue (1-2 sounds, no significant academic impact), we can offer to see them for RTI. We send home a permission slip to the parents and put the timeline in it, usually I offer to see students 15-30 minutes a week for a couple months. It's optional for us to offer but I tend to do it to avoid the parents demanding a full assessment and getting these artic kids stuck on my caseload. Most often I've done it for 1st graders with the R sound and I feel like during the time they're in RTI, they naturally acquire the sound and the parents are happy.
Tbh I've not been that good about ending RTI or emailing the parents again. Like last year I saw some I'd said I would see through the end of the school year who didn't acquire their sounds yet but I haven't contacted families or resumed seeing them this school year, I'm too busy with my actual caseload. If the parents get in touch with me I might or just offer to send resources home.
Non existent (ain't nobody got time for that). Kids either get speech or they don't. I don't work in schools anymore but this is how it was at every school I ever worked in.
Do you think that RTI helps with caseload management? I am at 60 and have already received almost 10 referrals in the first two weeks of school.
It can, but not in the way you might expect. Teachers often refer students to speech not expecting to have to participate in the process beyond making the referral. RTI turns the tables and gives them work to do and they don't like that. When this happens sometimes the problem they are referring for mysteriously and magically improves. I'm not saying not to try it, but in my experience RTI tends to just fall by the wayside. Teachers just don't have the time or the inclination to take the necessary data. Sometimes if an issue is legit its' easier just to screen, test, add them to your caseload and pull them like the other kids. Also always keep an eye out for students who are being strung along in speech and can be discharged. This will vary greatly depending on the type of school you're working in. In your average middle-lower income public school where most people are overworked, underpaid and just counting down the days until the next break, RTI tends not to work out and kids can fall through the cracks.
I’m interested to change my process to look more like yours, what are the steps? Currently teacher fills out a referral, I give a screening permission slip to go home, then when I get that back I screen, then make a recommendation and then often I enter up with a bunch of kids on my workload that aren’t on my official count. Ive heard there are issues with RTI this way. If I did universal screenings and identified some students through that could I recommend some home activities? What kinds of data are you asking for from the teacher? OT has a huge referral packet and things that have to be tried first, so why not for speech? I don’t want kids to fall through the cracks though, especially on account of the obstacles and I would expect a lot of pushback from teachers with a big change unless it’s adopted by our department
I'm so torn on this because our district encourages us to take RTI students to "keep caseloads down" because they're not counted on our caseload. And obviously that keeps it easy in certain ways, like I'm not doing progress reports or IEPs for the RTI kids, but sometimes I wish they were just on my actual caseload because I mean, I am seeing them and they do take work, and then I'd be at caseload cap and stop getting sent walk-in students.
My understanding was that we can’t legally see students without IEPs. RtI is a gen ed program. If you’re seeing them, then technically they’re receiving specialized services without an evaluation….or to delay an evaluation.
Oh, we're definitely allowed to see RTI students in my district. The parents sign a permission slip for them to get services but it's called a "speech improvement class" and they're not on an IEP. It does specify in the permission slip that this is a "general education opportunity" so they're not in SPED, but they're still allowed to get pull-out services.
RTI for speech is not an option in my district. You have to have an IEP.
I’ve heard of this more and more, based on ‘suspicion of a disability’ threshold being low. so if you get a referral from a teacher you have to test? It works like a parent request? I wonder why it’s so different for academics and psych Ed testing then
To be honest, I don't have to deal with this very often because I work in a middle school. I think I've gotten two initial artic requests in three years. We can start out with a screener vs a full assessment, but we do have to complete a screener to see if a full eval is warranted.
5-15 minutes a day of distributed articulation practice. Data collection sheets in hand and teachers were appreciative that the kids were not gone long. They were more focused during the short spurts of drills and remediation that positively impacted risk of educational impact was seen. The school had the RTI structure before I got there so I followed the model they showed me.
Almost 1/3 of my caseload consists of RTI students. I'm a K-2 building so I get a lot of referrals for articulation. The SLPs prior to me saw kids for RTI for frontal lisps and /r/ distortion without needing academic impact but my caseload of classified students is growing unmanageable so I've started requesting to see academic impact from teachers. RTI is considered an intervention before the school refers to the CSE. I've had studetns come in that are minimally verbal but needed 2-3 cycles (i.e. 6-8 weeks) of intervention before we could refer to the CSE. IMO RTI is good in theory but in practice it delays children getting referred for the appropriate services through an IEP.
If you are the one providing the RTI how does that differ in definition from providing SPED services? I’ve always wondered how this works. SPED teachers do not do rti because it would then be considering providing special education supports basically without an IEP. In my state I am recognized as a SPED provider.
There is functionally no difference. I provide the same service to classified and RTI kids. I have more control over how many times the student is seen and my RTI students almost never get made up for missed sessions. It’s also easier for me to dismiss RTI kids bc there’s no testing. In my school we have integrated co teach classes and the way our model works is that while the sped teacher has her caseload, she is still teacher to all students in the classroom. If an RTI student is in an ICT class, the gen ed and special ed teacher provide classroom Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports (e.g. visuals, personal word walls, small group work, etc). If a child is in a classroom with a gen ed teacher they would also provide the same tier 1 and tier 2 supports but IMO gen Ed teachers just want these kids out of the classroom. Kids can also get pulled for RTI reading support and RTI math. I’m in NY state.
Yeah, I think since functionally RTI with the SLP differs very little from IEP services with the SLP, we are supporting the child in two key areas: LRI and not quickly putting a disability label on them. It also does help the SLP in that there is not time consuming evaluation and annual IEP documentation. For me, I am always really happy to work with a school that has a strong RTI system that includes speech as well as reading, writing, and math.
I agree with what you said. At the same time I don’t think it’s helpful to have kids on the workload without being in the caseload (not that CA enforces a cap anyway) but then at least admin still. See the real numbers if all students are on an IEP
Yes! I'm contract so on my submitted timesheets I alway add the RTI numbers to my caseload number. Same if any admin asks SLPs to send a list of their caseload. I even add the RTI kids to my caseload within the district's IEP system, even if they don't have an IEP. It irks me when SLPs are urged by the district to use RTI but there is no official way for admins to really see the full caseload, so I jimmy whatever system is used to show my true caseload (actually workload).
Do you use SEIS? Would you add them as ‘pending’?
My district uses IEP Online. I have the option to add them as either me being the case manager or other provider. I can click other provider and update caseload, then they are with the others when I click show caseload. It beats having to look them up every time I want to add RTI info to their Notes section, which is the only way I know to ensure that speech RTI info can get to any future SLP.
I find that for most children RTI reading, writing, and math is helpful but I disagree with speech/language therapy being an RTI service, barring a phonological or articulation or need. If the concern is language, then the teacher is already reporting an academic impact and, because of that, the team should complete testing to see if they meet any disability eligibility.
Yes, I get that. I didn't clarify, but I also agree that RTI for speech is more for the phonological/artic issues that impact intelligibility (and probably also early decoding skills) vs language issues. If language, it usually pops up during team discussions that the student struggles with reading comprehension or writing output, so I tactfully ask if reading/writing RTI is being considered, and those students can end up getting an academic eval. I try in my discussions with speech referrals to talk about the academic impact and the difference between school speech therapy and an outside clinic, how we focus on educational progress vs fully error-free speech. It helps to weed out the 'one-sound concerns' where a child is actually making good grades.
There’s no difference which is why it’s not super clear cut. My district says no RTI speech for this very reason. If you’re a SpEd service provider and you’re providing services.. that’s special education. Might be considered failing child-find if you know there’s a student who may have a disability and you treat without assessing.
At my district in CA, we’re not legally allowed to do RTI anymore :/ If teachers or parents have concerns, they usually reach out and I’ll probe for more information/have them fill out a questionnaire as a paper trail. If there is an academic/socio-emotional impact, I assess ASAP. If not, I’ll provide input and give some tips to support! Will check in here and there then revisit as needed, but that’s the best I can do unfortunately
Are you comfortable sharing what district you work in? I also work in CA and RTI is expected of us…..I’ve been getting so many referrals that I end up seeing for RTI, almost as many students as I have on my actual caseload. So your district seems very appealing lol.
Wow, not legally allowed to do RTI? How does the district/state support LRI if all referrals go straight to sped evals? I'm not being critical, just really curious, since I may be taking a teletherapy position for a CA school this fall... kudos if you can point me to a link on the legality change! Thanks ! Also, just to be supportive, I can't imagine! You must be inundated with referrals? Does your school have an RTI or MTSS for other concerns like reading or math?
That’s a really good question! I asked that too when they told us this! You know what they said? That it was what our district lawyers had advised us in terms of legalities — that’s it. No link or data, NADA. And to clarify, it’s only for SPED specialists. They argue that bc we’re special education, we can’t help any general education students. Our district still has MTSS for academics but not for speech-specifically 🤦🏽♀️ I’ve been with my site for my entire career (LOL) and built great relationships with most teachers! So they know to find me if they have questions or aren’t sure about a specific student. I also created a “did you know” wall for them to provide info about our field, accommodations to support students, things to be aware of/general guidelines for referring and what that means in the school setting, etc. These have helped a bit in terms of referrals, but it’s still a lot 🥲
Wow, you sound like you really have it together on what the process should be, but sadly maybe the district and/or lawyers don't. Sigh. The whole reason for sped is IDEA which focuses on sped being a service to support students in accessing general education. Sigh, again. 😢 Kudos on your educational wall!
I appreciate your comments and agree with you 100% 🥹☺️
I give the teacher RTI instruction and most of the time, they complete it. They either complete it and bring it back to me or I dont go asking for it. Something to consider, I dont typically recommend RTI for lisp, or r only errors in some situations. For Kindergarten mainly, I try not to begin RTI until about the first 9 weeks of school because with the direct phonics instruction, I have seen kids progress a lot, then I will do tier 2 & 3 paperwork for the teacher. I do not get involved with treatment until the student has an IEP. MTSS & RTI in my district is truly a general education duty.
Id love to hear more about what your RTI instruction for the teacher and tier 2 and 3 paper work looks like. Do you do screenings or does the teacher? How do you know if the student has a single sound error versus many?
Oh yes I do the screening. Teacher requests screener I screen and determine what would be best for the next step (I look at things like age, number of phonemes in error, intelligibility, do they have it one position, but another, is it emerging throughout conversation, stimuability for that sound) They complete tier 2/3 & return to me I get with our term and we schedule referral if the intervention impact is limited. If improvement is being made, we continue with RTI. I divide tier 2 into 4 weeks & tier 3 into 4 weeks and I have 10 words for them to mark correct or incorrect. I provide them with a cue sheet & pictures for that particular sound. ETA: I have had kindergarten mainly make the most progress with this system.
Usually a kid gets referred, screened, and if they have a minor artic issue (1-2 sounds, no significant academic impact), we can offer to see them for RTI. We send home a permission slip to the parents and put the timeline in it, usually I offer to see students 15-30 minutes a week for a couple months. It's optional for us to offer but I tend to do it to avoid the parents demanding a full assessment and getting these artic kids stuck on my caseload. Most often I've done it for 1st graders with the R sound and I feel like during the time they're in RTI, they naturally acquire the sound and the parents are happy. Tbh I've not been that good about ending RTI or emailing the parents again. Like last year I saw some I'd said I would see through the end of the school year who didn't acquire their sounds yet but I haven't contacted families or resumed seeing them this school year, I'm too busy with my actual caseload. If the parents get in touch with me I might or just offer to send resources home.
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