Student Services
SSD also offers a full range of related services from speech therapy to assistive technology services, which are considered during the Individualized Education Program (IEP) process. The district annually performs more than 75,000 screenings and diagnostic evaluations for area students.
Student Services Team
SSD's Student Services
- Applied Behavior Analysis
- Adaptive Physical Education (PE)
- Assistive Technology
- Augmentative Communication
- Health Services
- Music Therapy
- Occupational Therapy (OT)
- Physical Therapy (PT)
- School Psychological Services
- Social Work
- Speech/Language
- Student Intake
- Student Records
- Educational Surrogate Program
Applied Behavior Analysis
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a science that focuses on understanding behavior. It helps students with autism and related developmental disabilities gain skills that support independence, communication, learning, and positive social interaction. ABA in school is part of a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP), just like other related services such as speech or occupational therapy.
ABA may help a student
- Build communication, adaptive skills, and self-care skills
- Reduce behaviors that get in the way of learning
- Learn how to manage transitions, follow routines, and interact with others
Adaptive Physical Education (PE)
Adapted physical education is a special education service that ensures that the student is provided with physical education services that meet his/her unique needs. Students should be integrated into the regular education program as much as possible.
Benefits to Student Instruction
- Ensures safety of the student
- Provides individualized instruction to students with exceptional physical needs due to gross motor developmental delays, or other impairments
- Development of physical fitness, gross motor skills, perceptual motor skills, and/or sports and game achievement
- Ensures that each student actively participates in physical education at his/her own level
- Develops self-esteem and self-image
- Increases socialization skills
- Promotes sportsmanship
- Promotion of physical activity as part of an active lifestyle
Assistive Technology
As Assistive Technology Facilitators, we collaborate with IEP teams to identify, implement, and integrate assistive technology tools and communication systems to reduce or eliminate barriers, promote safety and self-advocacy, improve educational outcomes, and help students demonstrate their knowledge and skills. We promote independence and achievement in students with special needs through the integration of assistive technology into their individualized education program.
Benefits to Student Instruction
- Bridges the gap between students and their academic environments
- Give students with disabilities access to the tools that their peers have been able to access with ease and breaks down barriers
- Gives students with disabilities the ability to learn new skills so they can succeed in the classroom setting
- Prepares students with disabilities for their future life in the digital world
- Removes any limitations that students may have when learning & allows teachers to follow the existing curriculum with adaptations that fit students’ needs
Augmentative Communication
The Augmentative Communication department provides the collaborative support necessary to identify, implement, and integrate communication systems by increasing self-expression to promote safety, self- advocacy and independence in the educational setting. A primary objective of the department is to improve development of communication skills to increase academic achievement, social-communication and positive post-secondary outcomes.
Benefits to Student Instruction
- Improves language development
- Augments communication and can improve oral speech of AAC users
- Increases quality of work, school, and life, in general
- Proven to have positive impact on both language development and speech development
- Positive outcomes for language development and literacy
- Supports self expression in social situations
- AAC users can increase developmental skills such as vocabulary, length of sentence, syntax, and pragmatic skills
- Department provides continual development and responsibility for district wide training on software, implementation, and assistive technology through the SETT framework (joyzabala.com) and consultations to support students in meeting IEP goals/objectives.
Health Services
The Mission of SSD Health Services is to provide safe and effective care for our students and staff in the least restrictive environment. Healthy children learn best.
Benefits to Student Instruction
SSD Health Services provides safe and effective care for our students and staff to allow for better learning. The Department provides specialized nursing services and supports to enable students that require advanced medical care and technology to attend school safely. The provision of specialized health care services for all of the diverse needs of our students is essential for the purpose of moving all children forward in the educational process.
Music Therapy
Music therapy is a related service in which a board-certified music therapist provides individualized music interventions to assist educational/IEP goal attainment. The mission of the Music Therapy department is to facilitate student function and independence in the school setting by providing direct therapy to students, as well as support to teachers, parents and other IEP Team members through consultation, collaboration, and communication.
Direct service is when the music therapist targets IEP goals with the student present. Direct service may be considered if the student receives a significant motivation and/or assist from music therapy strategies provided in the music therapy setting. In addition, the student may respond best from strategies that only a music therapist can administer.
Supports for school personnel consists of interactions with classroom teachers and other school staff with the intention of increasing the capacity of school staff to meet the needs of the student. This support also allows for direct communication with the student’s educational team and the development of music therapy strategies that would support the student’s progress on IEP skills.
Benefits to Student Instruction
- Increase targeted academic skills (eg. Reading, Writing, and Mathematics)
- Increase visual and physical attention to individuals and educational materials
- Assist expressive and receptive communication
- Provide structure and boundaries
- Increase on-task behaviors
- Be used as direct reinforcement
- Enhance memory/recall of information when addressing academic, social, behavioral, motor, and language skills
- Increase motivation, participation, and endurance for non-preferred or difficult tasks
- Provide a supportive, predictable structure for practicing skills
- Increase self-expression, both verbally and non-verbally
- Increase tolerance for multiple repetitions of a task within a short time frame
Occupational Therapy (OT)
School-based occupational therapy practitioners support academic achievement and social participation by promoting occupation within all school routines, including recess, classroom, and cafeteria time. They help children fulfill their role as students and prepare them for college, career, and community integration. They utilize prevention, promotion, and intervention strategies for mental and physical health and well-being.
Benefits to Student Instruction
- Conducting activity and environmental analysis and making recommendations to improve the fit for greater access, progress, and participation
- Reducing barriers that limit student participation within the school environment
- Providing and supporting assistive technology to support student success
- Supporting the needs of students with significant challenges, such as by helping to determine methods for alternate educational assessment and learning
- Helping to plan relevant instructional activities for ongoing implementation in the classroom
- Preparing students for successfully transitioning into appropriate post–high school employment, independent living, and/or further education
- Collaborate with students to help them to develop self-advocacy and self-determination skills in order to plan for their future and transition to college, career/employment, and community living; improve their performance in learning environments throughout the school (e.g., playgrounds, classrooms, lunchrooms, bathrooms); and optimize their performance through specific adaptations and accommodations Occupational Therapy’s Role with School Settings
- Collaborate with parents to support their engagement with school activities such as attendance in individualized education program (IEP) meetings with cultural sensitivity, or to assist in homework management issues
- Collaborate with educators and other school support staff, to offer curricular modifications to support diverse learning abilities and to meet state learning standards
- Collaborate with paraeducators to support child success and promote safe participation within the school environment (e.g., physical and behavioral assistance needs)
- Collaborate with administrators to provide training for students, staff, and parents, such as offering recess promotion strategies or contributing to anti-bullying initiatives, as well as to recommend equipment for schools and ways to modify existing buildings and curriculum to allow access for all
- Occupational therapists complete evaluations and assessments, and collaborate with the team to identify a student’s annual goals and determine the services, supports, modifications, and accommodations that are required for the student to achieve them, including addressing transition needs no later than 16 years of age.
- Occupational therapy practitioners help to promote healthy school climates that are conducive to learning. They offer other valuable services to meet broader student behavioral and learning needs, along with systemic needs, by addressing students’ mental health and participating in other school-wide initiatives such as positive behavior supports, response to intervention (RtI), and Early Intervening activities.
- In addition, occupational therapy practitioners are active participants in developing curriculums and programs; addressing school health and safety; identifying assessment accommodations and modifications; and developing violence prevention, anti-bullying, and other types of programs. In this capacity, occupational therapy practitioners support the needs of all students, including those without disabilities (i.e. use the occupational therapist’s knowledge and expertise to assist in curriculum development for handwriting and social skills, or to recommend modifications to or design of classroom environments or assignments that help all students access and participate in school by implementing universal design for learning).
- Supports students in accessing instruction by addressing motor deficits which impede access to instruction
Physical Therapy (PT)
The school-based physical therapist promotes motor development and the student’s participation in everyday routines and activities that are part of his/her educational program. The PT designs and performs therapeutic interventions including compensation, remediation, and prevention strategies and adaptations, focusing on functional mobility and safe, efficient access and participation in educational activities and routines in natural learning environments.
Benefits to Student Instruction
- Participates in IEP and 504 process
- Gathering appropriate information from parents, students and IEP team members regarding the child’s functional motor performance in the school setting
- Selecting, administering and interpreting a variety of screening instruments and standardized measuring tools
- Designing and implementing physical therapy interventions that allow students to benefit from their educational program
- Measuring and documenting student progress resulting from the designed physical therapy interventions
- Teaching and training family members and educational personnel in an effort to help the student achieve his/her IEP goals
- Functioning as a consultant to other school personnel, families and students to coordinate the delivery of physical therapy services which may include: interpretation of assessments and recommendations; explanation of the potential impact of developmental, medical, and/or sensory-motor impairments on educational performance; instruction of caregivers regarding the physical management of students such as safe lifting, positioning, assisted ambulation, gross motor programs, vocational tasks, leisure activities, and/or equipment use; setting realistic expectations for student performance in school.
- Selecting, modifying or customizing adaptive equipment and assistive technology
- Adapting of environments to facilitate student access and participation in the educational environment
- Supporting the safe transportation of students
- Serving as a liaison among school, medical personnel, and medical equipment vendors
School Psychological Services
Services include consultation to general education and special education staff and parents regarding student learning, social, emotional, and behavioral patterns and student performance across educational settings. Plans, coordinates and conducts evaluations of students, and supports evaluation teams in the interpretation of assessment results and eligibility criteria in order to determine eligibility for special education and for programming purposes.
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Social Work
The Social Work division of Special School District provides individual and group social work counseling (direct) and support for school personnel (consult) to students and their families, and promotes awareness and understanding of these issues in schools and in the community.
The division's primary purpose is to help address barriers to learning that impact the student’s ability to function in the educational setting. These barriers may be internal (i.e. challenges associated with un- or under-treated mental health disorders) or external (i.e. food insecurity, homelessness, abuse and neglect, domestic violence, etc.). Social workers work to support the whole child and school team in order to improve that child’s ability to be successful in school and remain in the least restrictive setting.
Speech/Language
In collaboration with partner districts, Speech Language Pathologists provide technical education and a wide variety of individualized educational and support services designed for each student’s successful contribution to our community.
Benefits to Student Instruction
- Schedules and instructs students in assigned schools.
- Acts as a member of a diagnostic team to screen, evaluate and diagnose speech-language impairments, attend diagnostic conferences and submit written reports of assessment results to meet with state compliance requirements.
- Assists with creating and implementing Response to Intervention Plans for students with speech, language and communication concerns.
- Develops IEPs and implements educational learning plans to meet the speech-language needs, interests, and abilities of the students on caseload. Provides written evidence of daily and long-range instructional planning.
- Encourages students to set and maintain appropriate standards of behavior by implementing all district policies and rules governing student conduct, developing reasonable rules of classroom behavior, and maintaining classroom order in a fair and just manner.
- Employs a variety of instructional and therapeutic techniques, interventions, and media consistent with the physical limitations of the location and capabilities of the students.
- On a regular basis, assesses student’s progress toward instructional goals and objectives. Provides progress reports; maintains accurate, complete student records as required by law, district policy, and administrative regulations. Provides written evidence of routine data collection and analysis.
- Plans, supervises, and evaluates the performance of teacher assistant(s) and/or aide(s) cooperatively with principal/area coordinator, when applicable
Student Intake
Student Records
The Student Records department processes, maintains, and safeguards confidential student information and records, including fulfilling verified requests for student records to parents, students, staff, and third parties. All record requests should be sent to the department email or fax at e-records@ssdmo.org or 314.989.8317.