My child Doesn’t qualify for services…now what?

This is a common predicament that many families find themselves in. You feel in your gut your child needs some extra help. You finally decide to make the call or write the letter to the school. They get the evaluation done and then… you are told they are not in need of services. Well what now?

Recently I was one of these parents. I had my younger son evaluated for EI because I was concerned about his gross motor skills at 5 months of age. EI was great- a special education instructor and a PT came to my home, they worked with him, and they showed me the results all within the two hour time frame. They were very reassuring but I still wanted to make sure I followed up and got him up to speed on what I had been concerned about.

Once you are told your child doesn’t qualify for ___ (special class setting/PT/OT/Speech), you have several options. Sometimes your child can still benefit from some services, but their delay isn’t impactful enough to qualify for the school to provide assistance. I will give you an example- as a school based SLP there are many children who have articulation disorders like they are unable to say the /r/ sound. They may still be intelligible in their speech, but if their errors are not affecting their social skills or reading ability, they may not qualify for speech in the school. Now of course, you would still want your child to correctly produce all of their sounds in running speech! So this is one option- getting private services.

Another option is receiving enrichment/tutoring/parent coaching classes. This is what I opted to do for my little one recently. We attended baby gym and tummy time classes and I can’t believe he is moving the way he is now! My kids never cease to amaze me.

All this to say, as a parent you have a gut feeling about your child’s needs. Just know, there are people out there to help your family! Feel free to send me a message if I can ever give some advice or lend an ear!

-Brittany