Arizona IEP Related Services: Speech Therapy, OT, and Assistive Technology

The IEP meeting is scheduled, and the team is recommending a reduction from two speech therapy sessions per week to one. Or the occupational therapist says your child no longer qualifies for OT because the most recent evaluation shows "average" scores in isolation. Or you asked about an assistive technology evaluation and got a vague response about how the school "doesn't really do that." Each of these situations involves the same underlying question: what are related services under your child's Arizona IEP, when are they required, and what happens when the school tries to reduce or eliminate them?

What Counts as a Related Service Under Arizona and Federal Law

IDEA defines related services as developmental, corrective, and other supportive services that a child needs in order to benefit from special education. The definition is deliberately broad. The non-exhaustive list in federal regulations includes speech-language pathology, audiology, interpreting services, psychological services, physical therapy, occupational therapy, recreation (including therapeutic recreation), early identification and assessment, counseling services, orientation and mobility services, medical services for diagnostic and evaluation purposes, school health services, school social work services, and transportation.

The key phrase is "in order to benefit from special education." Related services are not required because a child has a diagnosis, because private therapists recommend them, or because the family would prefer them. They are required when the IEP team determines, based on evaluation data, that the student cannot make meaningful educational progress on their IEP goals without that service. That standard is higher than "would be helpful" but lower than "absolutely cannot function."

Arizona school districts and charter schools must provide all related services included in an IEP at no cost to the family, during the school day, delivered by appropriately qualified providers. If a service is written into the IEP, the school must deliver it. An IEP that specifies 30 minutes of speech therapy per week and then delivers 15 minutes is a compliance violation.

Speech Therapy on Arizona IEPs

Speech-language services are among the most commonly included related services in Arizona IEPs. Approximately 15% of Arizona students receiving special education services are classified with a Speech or Language Impairment as their primary disability category. But speech services appear on IEPs across disability categories — students with autism, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and traumatic brain injury frequently have speech-language goals.

The scope of school-based speech therapy is educational, not medical. A school speech-language pathologist is responsible for working on communication skills that support academic and social functioning in the school environment. This includes expressive and receptive language, articulation and intelligibility, pragmatic communication (social language skills), augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and reading/language foundations.

If the IEP team recommends discontinuing speech services because a student's standardized test scores have normalized, push back. Standardized scores measure performance in a structured, low-demand testing environment — they do not necessarily reflect how the student communicates in a noisy classroom, during a high-demand academic task, or in peer interactions. Request that the team provide data showing the student has generalized skills across settings before agreeing to reduction or discontinuation of services. A student who performs adequately on a test but continues to struggle in the classroom has not received the full benefit of the service.

Occupational Therapy on Arizona IEPs

Occupational therapy in the school setting focuses on skills necessary for participation in the educational environment: fine motor skills for writing, scissor use, and manipulative tasks; visual-motor integration; sensory processing that affects classroom functioning; and activities of daily living that are part of the school day (lunch, restroom, transitions). School OT is not the same as clinical OT delivered in a private therapy clinic, and the scope of the school-based evaluation and services is intentionally limited to what is educationally necessary.

A common conflict involves the gap between a private OT evaluation and the school's. A private therapist recommends what the child needs for overall development; the school team evaluates against the educational necessity standard. Both positions can be legitimate.

If the school denies OT services after a private evaluation has documented significant needs, request a school-based OT evaluation in writing. If the school evaluates and concludes services are not educationally necessary, request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at public expense. The school must either fund it or file for due process to defend its evaluation.

Before agreeing to any related services decision, the Arizona IEP and 504 Advocacy Playbook provides a framework for evaluating whether your school's recommendations meet the legal standard for educational necessity.

Assistive Technology on Arizona IEPs

Assistive technology (AT) is defined under IDEA as any item, piece of equipment, or product system — whether commercially acquired, modified, or customized — that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability. This definition is intentionally broad. AT ranges from low-tech tools like pencil grips and slant boards to mid-tech like audiobooks and text-to-speech software, to high-tech communication devices (AAC) and specialized computers.

Under IDEA, IEP teams are required to consider each student's need for assistive technology as part of the IEP development process. The word "consider" is important: the team must actively examine whether AT is needed, not simply assume it is unnecessary and move on. If the team does not address AT at the IEP meeting, they have not met the consideration requirement.

For students with complex communication needs, significant physical disabilities, or significant learning disabilities affecting written expression or reading access, AT may be not just helpful but essential for accessing the curriculum. A student who cannot produce legible handwriting due to a motor disability cannot participate in writing assignments without some form of AT. A student with severe dyslexia who cannot independently access grade-level text without text-to-speech is not receiving FAPE if the school refuses to provide that tool.

When requesting an AT evaluation or arguing for specific AT devices or software, the question to frame for the IEP team is: without this tool, can this student access the general education curriculum at an appropriate level? If the answer is no, the AT is educationally necessary, not optional.

Arizona school districts must also provide AT devices for use at home when the IEP team determines the student needs access outside the school building for the student's benefit. A communication device that a student with autism relies on for expressive language cannot legally be locked in a cabinet at school if the student needs it to communicate at home.

What to Do When Services Are Reduced or Denied

When an IEP team reduces related services at an annual review, or denies a request for speech therapy, OT, or AT without adequate justification, the procedural response is the same as for any IEP dispute:

Request Prior Written Notice. The school must document the proposed change, the reason for it, the data relied upon, and other options considered. A generic statement that "goals have been met" is not a legally compliant PWN.

Review the evaluation data. Ask to see the specific evaluation data the team used to justify the reduction. If there is no current evaluation or the most recent data is more than a year old, you can request a reevaluation.

Request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) if you disagree with the school's evaluation findings. For related services, this means requesting an IEE by the specific type of evaluator — an independent SLP evaluation, an independent OT evaluation, or an independent AT assessment.

File a State Complaint with the ADE Office of Dispute Resolution if the school is failing to implement services that are currently in the IEP. Missing service sessions, using unqualified substitutes, or delivering services in a different format than specified in the IEP are all compliance violations that can be documented and reported.

Related services are not supplemental extras that schools can remove when budgets tighten or when a student has made some progress. They are legally required components of FAPE, and defending their presence in the IEP is a matter of legal rights, not personal preference.

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