SLP Toolkit

Stop Assuming the Answer Is No: Finding Funding for SLP Resources

2026-05-29T14:36:00-07:00

May 29, 2026

If you’ve spent any time working in schools, you’ve probably heard some version of, “There’s no money for that.”

As school-based SLPs, many of us become so accustomed to budget constraints that we stop asking altogether. We assume we’ll need to pay for resources ourselves, make do with what we have, or simply go without.

I know because I used to think the same way.

Early in my career, working in Arizona schools, I saw firsthand what it looks like to serve students in a system with limited funding. Arizona has consistently ranked near the bottom nationally for education spending, and those realities impact every corner of a school district. Teachers, SLPs, OTs, PTs, and other service providers become experts at stretching resources because they have to.

What surprised me, though, was learning that “limited funding” doesn’t necessarily mean “no funding.”

As I spent more time in leadership roles, I discovered there were funding sources I hadn’t even known existed. Depending on the district, resources may come from Title programs, grants, Medicaid reimbursement funds, capital budgets, school improvement funds, PTOs, booster organizations, and other sources earmarked for student support.

The challenge isn’t always that funding doesn’t exist. Sometimes it’s that the right people need a clear understanding of why a resource matters.

The Difference Between “No” and “Not Yet”

One of the biggest lessons I learned is that how you make a request matters.

Walking into an office and saying, “I’d like the district to purchase this,” rarely gets the conversation very far. Decision-makers are responsible for balancing countless competing priorities, and they need more information before they can commit funding.

When you’re requesting a resource, be prepared to answer three questions:

1. What are you requesting?

Be specific. Explain exactly what the resource is and what it includes.

2. How will it benefit students?

Connect the request directly to student outcomes. How will this improve service delivery, progress monitoring, efficiency, compliance, engagement, or access to intervention?

3. What is your implementation plan?

Show that you have a strategy for using the resource effectively. Administrators are much more likely to invest when they can see a clear path from purchase to impact.

When you can clearly address all three areas, the conversation shifts from “Can I have this?” to “How can we make this work?”

Funding Options to Explore

If you’re seeking funding for professional or therapy resources, don’t limit yourself to a single avenue.

Depending on your district structure, you may consider:

School-level funding through your principal
PTO or parent organization support
Special education department budgets
District-level curriculum or instructional funds
Grants
Medicaid reimbursement funds
Community organizations and education foundations
Crowdfunding platforms such as DonorsChoose

Many SLPs are surprised by how many opportunities become available once they start asking the right questions.

We Don’t Want You Paying for It Either

Whenever possible, we want districts and schools to invest in the tools that help SLPs do their best work.

That’s why we’ve created resources to help support funding conversations:

If you’re approaching your principal or PTO, start with an informational flyer and purchase request letter.
If you’re working through your district’s special education department, share our district information packet and district benefits page. Here is a sample letter you can use when approaching your district with this request.
If you’re creating a DonorsChoose project or similar grant request, use our sample project outline to help communicate the value and impact of the resource.

And if you run into questions you can’t answer, reach out at hello@slptoolkit.com. We’re always happy to help explain how SLP Toolkit supports service delivery, data collection, progress monitoring, and compliance.

Have You Successfully Secured Funding?

If you’ve had your subscription or therapy resources funded by a school, district, PTO, grant, or another source, we’d love to hear about it.

Share what worked, what surprised you, and any advice you’d give another SLP preparing to make the ask.

Sometimes the most valuable funding strategy is hearing how someone else got their yes.

Webinar Recap: Thrive in 2025 with SLP Toolkit

2025-02-28T09:07:00-07:00

The first-ever SLP Toolkit Community Webinar, Thrive in 2025, was a huge success! This exclusive, invite-only event held on February 25th, 2025, brought together passionate school-based SLPs and SLPAs looking for ways to streamline their workload, optimize efficiency, and finish the school year strong—rather than simply crawling to the finish line. With expert speakers, hands-on demos, and real-time Q&A, this webinar was packed with practical strategies and tech-based solutions to help school-based SLPs thrive. Whether you missed it or want a quick refresher, here’s a recap of the highlights!

Key Takeaways from the Webinar

1️⃣ AI-Powered Tools for SLPs (with Patricia Johnson, SLP & Tech Enthusiast)

Patricia kicked things off by showcasing how AI can revolutionize SLP workflows. She demonstrated how ChatGPT (including a new custom-built AI assistant for SLP Toolkit users!) can help with:

✅ Writing Present Levels of Performance (PLOPs) – Use AI to generate well-worded, data-driven summaries based on SLP Toolkit reports.

✅ Progress Monitoring Reports – Get AI to analyze therapy data and generate concise progress updates in seconds.

✅ Lesson Planning – Create targeted, engaging, and scaffolded lesson plans in minutes.

✅ AI Best Practices – Learn how to write clear, specific prompts to get the best AI-generated content.

💡 Bonus: SLP Toolkit created a custom ChatGPT assistant specifically for SLPs! This tool helps with lesson planning, progress monitoring, and more—all tailored for school-based speech therapy.

2️⃣ Scheduling & Lesson Planning Hacks (with Risa Fly, Customer Happiness Specialist & Former SLPA)

Risa shared game-changing scheduling and lesson planning tips to help SLPs stay organized and efficient: 🗓 Scheduling Tips:

✔ Handling Unique Schedules – How to schedule students with rotating or bi-weekly sessions.

✔ Quickly Updating Your Schedule – Move multiple sessions at once for last-minute schedule changes (hello, snow days!). 📚 Lesson Planning Tips:

✔ Creating Running Lists – Keep track of lesson plans and past activities for each student/group.

✔ Ready-to-Go Literacy-Based Lesson Plans – Use SLP Toolkit’s built-in templates to save time.

✔ Attaching Plans to Sessions – Easily connect plans to specific students and sessions for seamless lesson delivery.

💡 Fun fact: You can print and share SLP Toolkit lesson plans with assistants or supervisors!

3️⃣ Progress Monitoring Like a Pro (with Ashley Foreman, SLP & Customer Happiness Manager)

Ashley wrapped up the webinar with a deep dive into progress monitoring strategies to make data collection easier and more effective:

📊 Four Ways to Complete Progress Reports:

1️⃣ Traditional Data Reports – Automatically calculate averages and generate visual graphs.

2️⃣ Criterion-Referenced Tests (CRTs) – Measure student progress using standardized probes over time.

3️⃣ Rubrics – Ideal for fluency, AAC, and social communication goals that don’t fit plus/minus data collection.

4️⃣ Custom Assessments – Build and share your own progress monitoring tools within SLP Toolkit.

💡 Pro tip: Attach rubrics and CRTs to IEPs for easy reference!

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who joined us live! Here’s to finishing the school year strong and thriving in 2025! 🚀🎉

Did you miss this event? Email hello@slptoolkit.com to get on the list for future community webinars.

True Confessions Episode 61: We don’t always know where we fit in a collaborative therapy model in the schools.

2023-12-01T09:50:00-07:00

Dec 4, 2023

Today we have Rachael From in the confessional, a school-based SLP from the state of Washington. Rachael shares how we can do more with less by collaborating with other professionals in the school setting. In this setting, SLPs have access to many different professionals while serving students, and using everyone’s collective thinking can have a much bigger impact than working with students as an individual provider in the speech room. Not only does it save time, it also allows students more time to interact with peers and be a part of the classroom. When professionals co-treat the students are able to integrate the skills they are learning and work on things simultaneously leading to better carry-over and progress with less fatigue and more engagement. Join us as we discuss who you may co-treat within the schools, what that may look like with different levels of supports for students, and how higher levels of supports may benefit from more adults treating together more often. We also discuss the differences between direct and indirect collaboration and how to effectively explain this model to parents.

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link.

If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here.

We’re also on apps like Pocket Casts, Radio Public or Overcast. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed.

If you still can’t figure it out, or there’s another platform you use that we’re not on, let us know podcast@slptoolkit.com.

Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts

Hey, do you like what you hear? Please rate and review us so others can find us too!

XOXO - Lisa & Sarah

True Confessions Episode 60: We all have at least one underserved student on our caseload.

2023-11-05T11:26:00-07:00

Nov 6, 2023

Today we have Susan Chavez, a bilingual CCC-SLP from Southern California, in the confessional talking about working with underserved populations. People from underserved communities face daily obstacles that can impact their progress in treatment across several fields such as medicine, speech therapy, etc. For this episode, we focus on students in schools that come from underserved communities and how there are several barriers in their everyday life that have an impact on their function in school. When these students are on our caseloads, it is important for us to learn about and acknowledge these barriers so we can adjust our treatment approaches to ensure they have the same opportunities for growth and success.

Resources:

A Parent’s Guide to Bilingualism

English ⁠http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/A-Parents-Guide-to-Bilingualism-English-7652965?st=6a74d58e872248813c39a425e283e9f2⁠

Wheel of Privilege - ⁠https://kb.wisc.edu/instructional-resources/page.php?id=119380⁠
Parent friendly terminology blog post - ⁠https://slptoolkit.online/blog/What-the-heck-are-you-talking-about/⁠

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link.

If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here.

We’re also on apps like Pocket Casts, Radio Public or Overcast. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed.

If you still can’t figure it out, or there’s another platform you use that we’re not on, let us know podcast@slptoolkit.com.

Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts

Hey, do you like what you hear? Please rate and review us so others can find us too!

XOXO - Lisa & Sarah

True Confessions Episode 59: We were not the “ideal” grad student.

2023-10-07T08:50:00-07:00

Oct 9, 2023

This is the first time we’ve had an anonymous guest in the confessional, who we will call “Molly.” Molly shares her experience in grad school, which was not all sunshine and rainbows. Speech-language pathology graduate programs are often rigorous, stressful, and can be down-right difficult. While in graduate school, it is vital for students to stay true to and advocate for themselves while knowing their limits. Balance between personal life and school life is a must, even when program staff push for school life to outweigh personal life and appropriate supports are not available or given to under/graduate students.

Resources:

ASHA mental health resources: ⁠https://www.asha.org/practice/connecting-audiologists-and-speech-language-pathologists-with-mental-health-resources/⁠

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link.

If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here.

We’re also on apps like Pocket Casts, Radio Public or Overcast. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed.

If you still can’t figure it out, or there’s another platform you use that we’re not on, let us know podcast@slptoolkit.com.

Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts

Hey, do you like what you hear? Please rate and review us so others can find us too!

XOXO - Lisa & Sarah

NLA Stage 4, 5 & 6

2023-09-20T06:47:00-07:00

September 25, 2023

Here we are – in the 4th and final installment of our Natural Language Acquisition (NLA) series! We will be discussing emergent and developing grammar skills in children who are Gestalt Language Processors. First, a quick review of the 6 stages of NLA.

Stage 1: Echolalia

• Use of individual gestalts learned from either consumed media or individuals within the community (family members, caregivers, therapists, etc.)

• These gestalts are fixed, and their exact production (often including fixed intonational variations) will not change from instance to instance EX: “Let it go!” “Give me more cookies!”

Stage 2: Mitigated gestalts

• This phrase is hallmarked by the combination of gestalts which are already established within the individual communicative repertoire EX: “Let me go,” or “Go give more cookies.”

Stage 3: Single word use

• This phase, which is particularly exciting from a language development standpoint, occurs when the individual begins recognizing words as their own linguistic units as opposed to fixed utterances. This is the first stepping stone toward truly spontaneous and independent communication. EX: “Go,” “More,” etc.

Stages 4, 5 and 6: Emerging syntax and increased sentence complexity

• Hallmarks of these stages include inappropriate syntax use progressing toward complex and appropriate grammar and increased sentence complexity EX: “Let’s give me more cookies,” —> “Go get the toy,” —> “Please give me the toy.”

In Stage 4 of NLA, you will often hear communicators using inconsistently improper grammar. This improper grammar is to be expected in Stage 4 and is a sign that these communicators are flexing those linguistic muscles to produce their own, novel utterances. If you’ll remember from the first Gestalt Language Processing series, therapy with Gestalt Language Processors going through the stages of NLA is all about modeling, not mandating a certain type of language/vocabulary use. Just as with our early stages of NLA, identifying target utterances for modeling first involves a thorough analysis of our client’s spontaneous and naturalistic utterances. A crucial step to identifying which types of phrases and word combinations to model for your clients during your play-based session is to identify, categorize and then analyze the sentence structures used in your clients’ spontaneous speech.

The model most often used for identifying and categorizing these phrases marked by poor grammar is known as Developmental Sentence Types by Laura Lee, first coined in a 1966 publication linked below. For more in-depth information on how to break down utterances by types (noun and noun elaborations, designators and designative elaborations, descriptive words and predictive elaborations, etc.) I recommend checking out the Meaningful Speech Course, as always. The thorough education you’ll receive through the Meaningful Speech Course will cover far more information than I’m able to in a brief blog post.

The coining of DST lead to the development of Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS), which is a clinical procedure for estimating syntactic development in children’s speech. This method of syntactic analysis was first published in 1971 and the original publication is also linked below for your convenience. The first 3 levels of DSS are associated with Stage 4 of NLA, and the more advanced levels are closely associated with Stages 5 and 6. Luckily, for your convenience, Laura Lee and Susan Carter have also developed a scaled chart with each stage of DSS moving in sequential order of language development. The charts with practice analysis opportunities are included in the Meaningful Speech Course, but you should be able to find the charts themselves with a thorough explanation in the publications linked below for your own personal reference.

As with Stages 1, 2, and 3, when you have identified which types of syntactic utterances are most commonly used in your client’s spontaneous speech, you can then identify the next level up as your target utterance model. These modeling opportunities should, as always, continue to be produced in naturalistic opportunities, through play-based and child-led therapy.

And with that, we conclude our second Gestalt Language Processing series, an overview of the stages of Natural Language Acquisition. If you have questions, comments, or additional resources, please comment below!

Resources:

Developmental Sentence Types (DST): https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/jshd.3104.311

Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS): https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/jshd.3603.315

Meaningful Speech Course: https://www.meaningfulspeech.com/course

In-Depth Courses about NLA: https://naturalcommunication.myshopify.com/

Additional free resources: https://communicationdevelopmentcenter.com/

About the Author

Marisa Julius is a speech-language pathologist that has worked in both public and private school settings with a focus in pediatric augmentative and alternative communication therapy. She currently works for a private specialized school setting with children 5-21 with complex communication needs and a variety of disorders including Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Language Delays, Reactive Attachment Disorder, and more. She is a Missouri native and earned two Bachelor’s degrees from Truman State University in Communication Disorders and German Studies. She received her M.A. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Saint Louis University. She considers herself a lifelong learner, and is thrilled to be writing for SLP Toolkit, if only for an additional excuse to read more. In her free time, you can find her cooking, reading, hiking, or showing everyone unsolicited pictures of her dog.

True Confessions Episode 58: Our dogs are not well-behaved enough to be therapy dogs.

2023-09-14T13:37:00-07:00

Sept 18, 2023

Today we are chatting with Maria Papas, an elementary school SLP from Minnesota. In January 2020, Maria rescued a 10-week-old puppy named Diggity…and then the COVID pandemic began. She poured all of her spare time into training Diggity to become a therapy dog. Throughout the journey, she learned a lot about dog behavior, communication and training. In this episode, Maria shares information about the process of training and certifying a therapy dog, as well as how she incorporates Diggity into speech therapy sessions for different treatment areas such as fluency, language, articulation, and social communication.

Resources:

IG handle: diggity_do

Alliance of Therapy Dogs - https://www.therapydogs.com/

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link.

If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here.

We’re also on apps like Pocket Casts, Radio Public or Overcast. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed.

If you still can’t figure it out, or there’s another platform you use that we’re not on, let us know podcast@slptoolkit.com.

Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts

Hey, do you like what you hear? Please rate and review us so others can find us too!

XOXO - Lisa & Sarah

Natural Language Acquisition - Stage 3

2023-09-07T10:52:00-07:00

September 11, 2023

We’re well on our way folks - almost to the end of our series reviewing each stage of Natural Language Acquisition in depth. This week is all about Stage 3!

Stage 1: Echolalia

• Use of individual gestalts learned from either consumed media or individuals within the community (family members, caregivers, therapists, etc.)

• These gestalts are fixed, and their exact production (often including fixed intonational variations) will not change from instance to instance EX: “Let it go!” “Give me more cookies!”

Stage 2: Mitigated gestalts

• This phrase is hallmarked by the combination of gestalts which are already established within the individual communicative repertoire EX: “Let me go,” or “Go give more cookies.”

Stage 3: Single word use

Stages 4, 5, and 6: Emerging syntax and increased sentence complexity

Stage 3 might be especially exciting to Speech Language pathologists because it is the beginning of recognition from our students that each individual word is its own linguistic component of a sentence or utterance. It’s important to note that in this stage, word order and grammar are not taken into consideration for the communicator in question. In fact, word order might often be the reverse of what we might expect to see from someone in stage 5 or 6 of Natural Language Acquisition. This is also the point of NLA where the pointing phase we commonly associate with single word use in our analytic language processors begins. You might be thinking to yourself, what kinds of combinations of words is considered “normal” for my child? In Stage 3 of NLA, 2 word combinations are typically noun + noun or adjective + noun (or noun + adjective, but you get the idea). This stage is all about the nouns! If you would like more in depth information regarding the specific analysis of these different noun/adjective combinations, I highly recommend checking out the Meaningful Speech course on Gestalt Language Processors and Natural Language Acquisition, linked below. This course details a very thorough scoring and analysis method that helps me break down and understand these utterances in my own practice!

This stage is a wonderfully transformative moment in the course of Natural Language Acquisition, but that doesn’t mean that it lasts as long as Stage 1 or Stage 2. In fact, Stage 3 may be significantly shorter than these two stages. But it is vital that this stage occurs and is encouraged by professionals/caregivers in order to “free” each word from their gestalt constrictions. Only then can individuals going through the stage of NLA be able to use their own individual language in novel and original utterances.

So the major takeaways of this stage are:

• We are finally focusing on nouns! Explore your surroundings, name the objects you see and describe them using adjectives

• Referential pointing may be introduced and used at this stage

• Word order during this point of language development does not matter, and should not be corrected by those modeling Stage 3 utterances\

In the next and final piece of this series we will be quickly reviewing the final 3 stages of NLA, Stage 4, 5, and 6. We will also finally begin to discuss the long avoided topic of grammar and syntax. See you in a few weeks for our next post!

Any questions? Additional resources? Comment below!

Resources:

Meaningful Speech Course: https://www.meaningfulspeech.com/course

In-Depth Courses about NLA: https://naturalcommunication.myshopify.com/

Additional free resources: free resources: https://communicationdevelopmentcenter.com/

About the Author

True Confessions Episode 57: We learned what childhood apraxia of speech was in grad school, but not really how to diagnosis or treat it.

2023-08-27T06:22:00-07:00

August 28, 2023

Today we have Noelle Scolieri, M.S. CCC-SLP in the confessional! Noelle is a pediatric speech-language pathologist who holds children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) near and dear to her heart. In today’s episode, we discuss how CAS is unique from other speech disorders, including treatment and diagnosis. Though CAS is a speech disorder, it impacts many other areas of a child’s (and their family’s) life. This podcast conversation provides SLPs with the tools and insight to bring into their clinical experiences with current and future clients.

Resources

IG handle: @anslp2b.

Child Apraxia Treatment (Once Upon A Time Foundation) [Edythe Strand resources]: ⁠https://childapraxiatreatment.org/⁠
Apraxia-Kids website: ⁠https://www.apraxia-kids.org/⁠
An amazing book by a parent of a child with CAS called “Speaking of Apraxia (Second Edition): A Parents’ Guide to Childhood Apraxia of Speech”
CAS for parents and clinicians to find resources. ⁠http://www.easypeasyspeech.com/parent-resources.html

How to Listen

You can always listen to this week’s podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here’s how:

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link.

If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here.

We’re also on apps like Pocket Casts, Radio Public or Overcast. And in case you really need it, here’s the RSS feed.

If you still can’t figure it out, or there’s another platform you use that we’re not on, let us know podcast@slptoolkit.com.

Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts

Hey, do you like what you hear? Please rate and review us so others can find us too!

XOXO - Lisa & Sarah

Gestalt Stage 2

2023-08-17T10:04:00-07:00

August 21, 2023

We recently reviewed Stage 1 of Natural Language Acquisition or gestalt Language development. Just for a brief reminder, the stages of each stage of Natural Language Acquisition are below:

Stage 1: Echolalia

• Use of individual gestalts learned from either consumed media or individuals within the community (family members, caregivers, therapists, etc.) • These gestalts are fixed, and their exact production (often including fixed intonational variations) will not change from instance to instance EX: “Let it go!” “Give me more cookies!”

Stage 2: Mitigated gestalts

• This phrase is hallmarked by the combination of gestalts which are already established within the individual communicative repertoire EX: “Let me go,” or “Go give more cookies.”

Stage 3: Single word use

Stages 4, 5 and 6: Emerging syntax and increased sentence complexity

Gestalt/Natural Language Acquisition (NLA) Stage 2

The second stage of Natural Language Acquisition is the stage where children begin to mitigate their gestalts, or mix and match certain portions of their gestalts to create new utterances. When 50% of a language sample collected by a clinician indicates the presence of mitigated gestalts, that’s how you can tell a child is solidly in stage 2 of Natural Language Acquisition.

In therapy, this translates to the modeling of each client’s gestalts being mitigated to fit the activities in the session. When your client/child has reached this step of Natural Language Acquisition, they should have a variety of stage 1 gestalts to sample for mitigation with words such as “it’s,” “let’s,” or “we/I can.” The quantity of mitigatable gestalts as well as a variety of words is important before modeling the mitigation of these gestalts. If your client does not have a large inventory or their gestalts are not easily mitigatable (for example, a client using the gestalt “Swiper no swiping!” doesn’t translate well to mitigation as not many utterances begin with the word ‘Swiper’) then they may not be fully ready for stage 2.

Types of gestalts to keep in mind when monitoring an inventory include gestalts that aid in the transition between activities or settings, narrate or describe activities, or allow the communicator to request/indicate their wants/needs.

The overarching principles regarding this stage are the same ones that we will discuss in each stage of Natural Language Acquisition: continuously take language samples, monitor your client’s progress, become a language detective, and keep your sessions child-led and fun. Communication is a way that we can connect with other people, and this connection should be joyful for our clients.

I’d also like to take this moment to remind anyone reading this that just because you have a client or a child who falls under the descriptor of a gestalt language processor, does not necessarily mean that they require traditional speech/language therapy services. Natural Language Acquisition is just that - natural! Children can move through all 6 stages without the aid of a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist. If, however, you are looking for additional supports for your child or they are already receiving the services of an SLP, then you are in the right place!

Join us in a few weeks for stage 3, and my personal favorite, single word use!

Resources:

Meaningful Speech Course: https://www.meaningfulspeech.com/course

In-Depth Courses about NLA: https://naturalcommunication.myshopify.com/

Additional free resources: free resources: https://communicationdevelopmentcenter.com/

About the Author