What is Push-in Therapy?

Using “push-in” services in the realm of speech therapy has become more popular in the last several years.  Therapists are not only looking for ways to reach more students in terms of scheduling, but we are also seeing the valuable benefits of working with students in their direct learning environments.  I have done inservices with teachers on the many benefits of push-in therapy, and I’ve included some ideas/uses below!

What do push-in services look like?

• Can be for 1 student or for multiple students in one session
• Could be co-instructed with the classroom teacher
• Could be more of an observation of a specific skill or goal area
• SLP should ensure teacher is aware of student’s goals prior to push-in therapy
• Looking for student’s ability to carryover skills from therapy

Why do we do it?

• SLP can see if student is able to be independent with their language/speech skills in other settings; do they cue or correct themselves in class?
• Need to see if students are responsive to teachers’ cues/prompts to remediate speech/language errors in class
• Great opportunity for SLP to use whatever lesson or skills are observed in classroom and work on review of those skills in pull-out therapy

What are the benefits?

• Dynamic, functional setting gives SLP the ability see student outside of a structured therapy session
• SLP can collect data in multiple settings and compare for overall progress and mastery of skills
• SLP can model strategies and techniques for teachers and other professionals who are in the classroom
• SLP can cue/model strategies for the student in the classroom to help them participate with and comprehend the curriculum
• Gives the SLP opportunity to offer positive praise to student for carrying over speech/language skills to the classroom or to the teacher for utilizing successful strategies in the classroom
• SLP can serve as an extra support to the teacher during lesson
• Able to assist teacher and entire classroom in areas of instruction, prompts and visual supports, language, writing, etc.
• Goal is to keep student in the classroom setting as much as possible, especially as student progresses through grade levels

Katie Beckett, M.S. CCC-SLP, 2013