Writing IEPs and evaluations doesn’t have to feel like starting from scratch every single time. In this episode, we break down simple, systems-based strategies that help school-based SLPs write reports faster—without cutting corners or second-guessing their clinical decisions. You’ll learn how small shifts, like templates and text expanders, can reduce overwhelm, boost confidence, and make paperwork feel far more manageable.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
- Eliminate “blank page syndrome” when writing reports
- Use templates to streamline IEPs and evaluations
- Avoid common copy-and-paste mistakes
- Save hours during progress note season
👉 Tune in to start building a calmer, more efficient paperwork system you can actually sustain.
One of the biggest time drains in IEPs and evaluation reports isn’t the analysis; it’s starting from a blank page. When data is scattered, wording feels high-stakes, and deadlines are looming, even experienced SLPs can lose momentum before they write a single word.
This struggle is well-documented. Special education professionals consistently report that paperwork requirements are time-consuming, repetitive, and difficult to manage alongside service delivery (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2015). ASHA has also acknowledged that documentation demands are a major challenge for school-based SLPs, particularly as caseloads and compliance requirements increase (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d.).
The good news: writing faster does not mean lowering quality. With a few simple systems (many of which you can build yourself), you can dramatically reduce writing time while maintaining strong, defensible documentation.
Why IEPs and Evaluations Feel Harder Than They Should
Most inefficiencies fall into three categories:
- Rewriting the same explanations over and over
- Searching for data across emails, notes, and files
- Rebuilding reports from scratch each time
Research across healthcare and education settings shows that documentation burden contributes to stress, burnout, and reduced efficiency, especially when systems lack standardization (Melnick et al., 2025). While schools differ from medical settings, the underlying issue is the same: cognitive overload caused by repetitive, fragmented documentation tasks.
Step 1: Use a Report-Readiness Checklist
Before writing, confirm you have all required inputs. Here are a few examples:
- Teacher input
- Parent input (if applicable)
- Progress monitoring data
- Baseline and current performance levels
- Evaluation results and interpretation notes
Tip: Keep this checklist easily accessible. SLP Now offers printable and digital checklists. Sign up for a free trial today!
Step 2: Build a Shared Template Bank
One of the most effective ways to reduce paperwork time is to stop reinventing the wheel every time your write a report.
Create a shared document (with your district team or just yourself) that includes:
- Headings for each IEP/evaluation section
- Strong sample language under each heading
- Notes on when to use each example
Special education literature has long identified redundancy in paperwork as a major inefficiency, and shared templates are frequently recommended as a way to reduce unnecessary duplication (National Association of Elementary School Principals, 2004).
To keep templates usable:
- Limit examples to “best of” language
- Add a table of contents
- Archive outdated wording
Step 3: Use Fill-in-the-Blank Frameworks
Templates work best when they guide thinking instead of replacing it.
For example, a PLAAFP framework might include:
- Student strengths
- Areas of need
- Data source and performance level
- Educational impact
- Instructional implications
Standardized documentation frameworks have been shown to improve consistency and efficiency in other professional fields while preserving inpidualized content. The same principle applies to special education documentation.
Step 4: Use Text Expanders
If your district allows it, text expanders can save substantial time by inserting full templates when you type a short code.
Studies in medical documentation show that text expansion and standardized text tools reduce time spent writing and decrease error rates (Toomath & Hibbert, 2025). While school-based SLPs must follow district guidelines, the concept of reducing repetitive typing is well-supported.
Examples:
.plaa→ PLAAFP framework.gfta→ Test description + interpretation.prog→ Progress summary language
We recommend confirming district approval before using third-party tools!
Step 5: Prevent Copy-Paste Errors with Placeholders
To protect quality when working quickly:
- Use placeholders for student names and pronouns
- Replace them using Find & Replace once the report is complete
This simple system reduces the risk of common documentation errors, which are more likely when clinicians are fatigued or under time pressure (Perrin & Otts, 2025).
Step 6: Streamline Progress Notes with Centralized Data
Progress notes are often stressful because they require synthesizing data across time. When data is centralized and visualized, interpretation becomes faster and more accurate.
Research on documentation burden consistently emphasizes that reducing friction (such as data hunting) improves efficiency and clinician well-being (Perrin & Otts, 2025).
Here’s a peek at how we do progress notes at SLP Now!
A Simple, Repeatable Workflow
- Run your checklist
- Insert templates or frameworks
- Add student-specific data
- Replace placeholders
- Do a final quality scan
This workflow supports both efficiency and compliance!
What “Not Sacrificing Quality” Really Means
Quality documentation:
- Reflects student-specific data
- Clearly explains educational impact
- Aligns PLAAFPs, goals, and services
- Meets district and legal requirements
ASHA emphasizes that accurate, thorough documentation is a core professional responsibility for school-based SLPs (ASHA, n.d.). Systems don’t replace clinical thinking; they protect it.
Ready to make paperwork calmer?
Start with one section you write frequently and turn it into a reusable framework this week. Small systems compound quickly! Paperwork doesn’t have to be the part of your job that drains your energy.
References
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Documentation in school settings: Frequently asked questions. https://www.asha.org/slp/schools/documentation-in-schools-faqs/
Perrin, A. & Otts, J. A. (2025). Reducing clinical documentation burden: An evidence-based quality improvement initiative. The Nurse Practitioner, 21(7).
National Association of Elementary School Principals. (2004). Reducing special education paperwork.
Toomath, S., & Hibbert, E. J. (2025). Auto-expansion software prompting reduces abbreviation use in electronic hospital discharge letters. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 25, 12.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2015). Special education: State and local requirements complicate federal efforts to reduce administrative burden (GAO-16-25).
Transcript
Welcome back to the SLP Now Podcast. We are continuing our series on paperwork, and today we are diving into how to write reports faster without sacrificing quality. First of all, let's just normalize the dread that comes with opening up your IEP software and staring at a blank page. We can call it blank page syndrome.
Especially as a newer SLP, this is what I really struggled with because I would be stressed about all of the IEPs and evaluations that I had due. I felt immense pressure to get a lot done super quickly. My brain was just so overwhelmed. I wasn't feeling super confident, and I would just stare at the page and see that blinking cursor and it's like, what do I write?
So we are going to chat about some strategies to streamline your report writing process, boost your confidence, and help you get things done much faster. I've talked to a lot of SLPs about the struggle with paperwork and some things that SLPs have said that make it a little bit tricky is that it feels like we have to start from scratch.
We rewrite the same things over and over. We might be digging through our files of oh, I did a really nice job talking about this in the report that I did maybe three months ago, but which student was it? Where is that report? Trying to dig through and find that good example. And some of it might be around, remembering information about how the student is performing, evaluation data, progress monitoring data, having to dig for that information.
Especially when it comes to the PLAAFP statement. I forgot to get feedback from the teacher, or I forgot to collect data on this goal. And you're just kind of all over the place, realizing that you have missing data and trying to grab that data and it's just a little bit of a messy process.
The tips we shared last time about having a checklist ready can help streamline this process. You can ensure that when you are sitting down to do your IEP, you have all the information you need ready to go and it's easily accessible.
So the tips we shared last time again will help make this a little bit easier. But one other tool that is incredibly helpful is to build some templates. This would be an amazing activity to do With the SLPs in your district, if you can all come together, create a shared document, and then list all of the different parts of your IEP.
So whatever boxes you have to fill in, make those headings. under each heading have different examples. People can copy and paste examples and vote on which ones are the best. Do some cleanup together.
Whether you're doing this with your whole group of SLPs or a small group., each SLP could plug in examples they feel good about.And you can workshop that together to decide which examples are good to stay.
And then, you would have examples of different scenarios you might come across. You obviously won't create a template for every possible scenario, but if you have a couple starting points, you can copy from the template and paste it in and make adjustments.
Even basic components with fill in the blank sections make your report writing time easier because instead of staring at a blank page, you have something to copy and paste. It gives you momentum and you know your students you are an awesome speech language pathologist. You just need a little bit of a jumpstart to get the process going. And once you have that jumpstart, it's so much easier to fill in the information because you're not being overloaded. By implementing these tips, you'll be able to be calm when you're sitting down to write. And if you have these templates on top of it, it'll just make your report writing so much more fun, because then you can focus on the student. It's exciting to be able to provide a student with support and reflect on where they've been. If we're doing an evaluation, we get to nerd out about what we found and how we can support that student. So paperwork really can be an exciting activity.
And it's just an incredible way to support our students and use our clinical thinking to figure out the best plan for the student. By using the systems we've been talking about and having this template, it makes it so much better.
If you don't have a team of SLPs to work with, you can use the same Google Doc. Write down all of the sections in your IEP. Anytime you feel like, oh, I like this statement. Paste it into your templates and over time you'll have a really strong document to reference.
While you're listening to this, you can open up a Google Doc, pull up an IEP, list the different sections that you have to fill in. You don't have to start plugging in the information just yet, but that's something that you can do right now, and it'll only take you a few minutes.
Anytime you sit down to write an IEP, do a quick review and plug in that information.
I started building my Google Doc template when I was a CF and my template gotvery extensive over the years, ending up being hundreds of pages which made it hard to find anything. There are a couple of tips I want to share.
The first one is to use a text expander. Once you have your template solidified, you can use a tool called Text Expander.
But do check with your district, to make sure that they approve that and that it's okay. There's also some built-in options, like in your browser that you might be able to use as well. But the idea is that you create a shortcut. For example, if I administer, and hopefully your district software includes a template, but let's say I administered the GFTA.
I have a template that I use to explain what the GFTA is and it has fill in the blank spots for different data and analysis. So I type dot GFTA on my keyboard. And I program this into the text expander. Anytime I type dot GFTA, it makes this little noise, it goes like bloop, and then it expands that text and automatically plugs my whole template. You can use this for test descriptions and analysis. You can also use it for different sections of your PLAAFP statement, and all of the different boxes in the IEP that you have to fill in. If you have to do manual typing, if there's not a dropdown, you can use the text expander to make this easier. Now, if your district has software with built in templates, you might not need to do this. The same goes for the template document. If you're not writing a lot from scratch, this might not be worth it. But, many of us don't have access to those time saving tools in our IEP software.
It's really nice even if we only have templates for a few things, it's a lot easier to just type in that quick code versus opening up your template document, going to the right section, copying it, pasting it in. It took me maybe 30 seconds to explain that process, but instead of doing all of that, you could just type in a quick code, which takes two seconds and it automatically fills it in for you.
Another thing that you can do is when you're setting up your templates to make it easier for yourself. Do not accidentally put another student's name in your report. So when you're creating those templates, whether you're using a Google Doc or a text expander, remove students' names and use three asterisks for the student's name.
For pronouns I will put two asterisks, and for possessive pronouns, I'll put one. I will use find and replace. On a Mac, it's command F to open the find feature or control F on a PC. First type in three asterisks then type in the student's name and it'll automatically replace all three asterisks with the student's name.
Then you rinse and repeat for the pronouns too. That helps ensure you don't accidentally put wrong names in the report or use the wrong pronoun. It's a nice way to make sure you're getting the right information. And protects you on days when you're really tired, so you won't make those silly mistakes.
That's what I would do for my IEPs and evaluations. When it comes to progress notes, if you are using SLP Now to collect data, we have a feature that generates your progress notes for you. You choose a few options and let us know what you want your progress note to look like, and then you click through.
We automatically load your graphs for the student. You pick from a dropdown menu like, the student is making slow progress. The student met the goal. We have different options. You can also add your own wording if you have a certain way you like to use, but then you just click the dropdown and then click the next goal.
Click. click, click, and you can generate your progress notes in a matter of seconds. It's all templatized and your data is right there for you. You don't have to go digging for it, and try to interpret a bunch of data sheets and sticky notes. That is a huge time saver when it comes to paperwork.
Progress note week is something that can be very stressful, but what if you could sit down and get all of your progress notes done in an hour or two? Instead of spending a week or two working early mornings, nights, and weekends to get it done.
But now with this feature, it's possible to get it. Just sit down for an hour and knock 'em all out. Make sure to check out the free trial of SLP Now. I have been in your shoes and I was managing a triple digits caseload and all of the tools that we built into SLP Now were created for school-based SLPs like me and you who are feeling super overwhelmed and need some, support. I created these tools to make my job easier, and I hope that they do the same for you. You can access the Academy and the Paperwork course, to get the workbook, the PD hours, and give you more support in starting to set this up.
Or if you're interested in our progress note feature, you can try that out. The free trial, there's no strings attached. You just send your name and email and set up a password and then you have access to everything for two weeks. Let us know if you have any questions and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.
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