Definition

“Speech Impairment” means a sound system disorder which includes articulation and/or phonology exhibited as a delay of correct sound production which adversely affects educational performance. This category also includes fluency disorders that are exhibited through one or more symptomatic behaviors of dysfluency (repetitions, prolongations, blockages or hesitations) which adversely affects educational performance and voice disorders that are exhibited through deviations in one or more of the parameters of voice (pitch, quality or volume) which adversely affects educational performance.

Criteria

Criteria for Sound System Disorder
A Sound System Disorder, which includes articulation and/or phonology, is present
when:

1. The student exhibits a delay of correct sound production based on accepted
   normative data. The child’s sound system is evaluated based on a single word
   test and/or a sentence/phrase repetition task and a connected speech sample;.



2. Consideration must be given to the type of error recorded (substitutions,
   omissions, distortions and/or additions). These errors may be described as
   single sound errors or errors in phonological patterns;
   
3. A Sound System Disorder may also be present if multiple errors in the child’s
   speech compromise intelligibility and/or listener perception even though the
   recorded errors are considered within normal developmental guidelines;



4. The Sound System Disorder adversely affects the child's educational
   performance;
   
5. The sound system disorder is not a result of dialectal differences or second
   language influence.

The evaluation report must include sufficient data to document the existence of the
Sound System Disorder and if, during the collection and analysis of the data, the child’s
language abilities appear to be impaired, a language evaluation will need to be
completed prior to a designation of language disorder.

Criteria for Fluency
A fluency disorder is present when:

1. The child consistently exhibits one or more of the following symptomatic behaviors
   of dysfluency:
1. Sound, syllabic, or word repetition.


2. Prolongations of sounds, syllables, or words.


3. Blockages.


4. Hesitations.


2. the child’s fluency is significantly below the norm as measured by speech sampling
   in a variety of contexts. A significant discrepancy is defined as five (5) or more
   dysfluencies per minute or a 10 percent dysfluency rate and distracting to the
   listener;
   
3. The fluency disorder adversely affects the child's educational performance.

Professional Judgment
A child may also be deemed eligible if the evaluation documents through formal and
informal assessment that a fluency deficit is present even though the criterion in B
above is not met. In such cases, sufficient data must be presented in the evaluation
report to document the existence of the fluency deficit.

Criteria for Voice
A voice disorder is present when:

1. The child consistently exhibits deviations in one or more of the parameters of voice:
   pitch, quality, or volume;
   
2. The child's voice is discrepant from the norm as related to his/her age, sex, and
   culture and is distracting to the listener;
   
3. The voice disorder is not the result of a temporary problem such as: normal voice
   changes, allergies, colds, or other such conditions;
   


4. the voice disorder adversely affects the child's educational performance.

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