school based services..

[Ericsmomma]

I'm just curious. If your children get speech, ot, and pt therapies at school, do you have much communication with their therapists?
Eric gets all three services at school, (which is a special needs school, not a mainstream school), and I NEVER hear from his therapists. I just got his progress reports and I gotta tell you, I am very ticked off with his speech therapist. All she did was list his goals aka making letter sounds, initiating communication etc..and then didn't tell me a thing on how she is trying to reach these goals...nada..just that he is successful 20% of the time.
Huh? I have no idea which "sounds" she is working on, how she encourages him, what methods are being used, you know, the basic things. I don't get anything written at all during school days, and there is no verbal communication between us. His teacher sometimes tells me whats going on when they have speech (group) in their room, but thats about it. The same goes for his OT and his PT, but at least their progress report was more detailed on what they are doing with Eric.
Could you tell me how you communicated with your therapists.
Maybe its just the way it is....they are definetly understaffed at his school (therapists), so before I blow up I want to make sure I am not expecting too much.

[momofrussell]

My main communication is with Russell's teacher, because she is "point of entry" for me for all matters, therapies included. Then if it's therapy related she relays messages and sometimes the therapists contact me. I don't go up to the school as much as I did the last school so I don't see the therapists as much. In our old district I was taking Reece in the afternoon to kindy (last school year) so I saw the therapists by chance more then most would. Then we chatted about Russell that way. But if I wasn't taking Reece, I wouldn't have had that.

The goals and what the therapists are working on is also something the teacher should be "in the know" about. So if they are working on something and you want to know HOW, you could start with the teacher and suggest maybe the therapist call you. There is nothing wrong asking how a task should be executed.

And yes, I get the progress reports and the precentages and sometimes that is my only gauge on how Russell is doing with his goals with the therapists. Again, I talk to his teacher more then anyone.

A.

[Monique]

I have a communication book with each therapist. I also go to his school the first or second day and meet all of his therapists in person. I also make a point to sit in on one of each of his sessions about once a quarter or more if i can swing it. This way they know that i am on top of what they are doing. I say i do this so i can carry over their hard work at home but also so they dont think i am spying. I'm really not, i just want to see what they/he are doing. Sometime I find out things he does there i would never see at home.

I work full time and have two other small children and it's hard and i have to take off of work in the middle of the day but ...c'est la vie. They know i am engaged so i expect them to reciprocate. I would suggest asking them to let you sit in on a session or two and i would make sure you are writing to them consistantly so they have to write back to you. Jameson is 7 now and he gets Speech, OT, PT, and Feeding therapist all week and he also is in a special needs school. Normally, i get a real positive response from the therapists for being involved. I also want to see their relationship as i have had therapists switched because i can see the chemistry just isnt there. If our schedules do not work out, i definately have a phone conversation with the therapist to catch up and see how and what they are doing with him.

Go watch a session and see what happens. I also try to stay friendly with the therapists by giving little gifts throughout the year to show my appreciation for what they do. Okay, so i am a suck up. If it makes them work harder for jameson, so be it!

You make the first move and see if that gets the ball rolling.

Monique

[mydsgirl]

Emma receives ST, OT and PT at school also. I get a note from her TOR regarding when she has had the services but now that you mention it, I have NO idea how they are trying to achieve her goals, especially for speech. Emma doesn't talk much at home, I can't see her doing much for the ST either. grrrrr

I made a note to ask the school. Thanks for bringing this up.

[CC]

Chris has had OT, PT and ST in school since he was in preschool and YES we have lots of communication so that I can do home carry over. Chris is 14 now and no longer gets PT which was fine with me as he does really well in that area but even now to this day with him being 14 they all communicate with me lots and I have phone numbers for all of them, if needed ;D

When Chris was younger I use to go in lots to observe so I could learn what to do for the home carry over.

Just my thoughts girl but go in and observe and tell them you will be enclosing a notebook to communicate it would help tons

CC ~

[victoriasdad]

victoria get speech therapy, although her st didnt bother to show up for our parent teacher conference
her teacher showed me wht tools they use to accomplish her goals ,, i wasnt really impressed, funny how they are trying to teach her her colors with some luck, but all i have to do is tell her which movie i want and she will go get the correct dvd word recognition i am going to make a list of things victoria accomplishes at home and how we get her to accomplish these things and give them to her teacher, her teacher is older and i get the feeling,no disrespect implied, that she may have some dated ideas on special education, kwim, it is very fustrating to see the absolute amazing things your child can do all on her own, and then have her judged on some scale that accents her failings and does nothing to take advantage of her talents, does that make sense? its so hard to communicate to the teacher all the very wonderful and talented things victoria does, and they look at u like, yeah okay , sure, but u know she cant draw a stick figure of a person , and like yeah well she cant put these multi colored donuts on this stake in the correct order by size , but she can steal the car keys get in the car put the correct key in the ignition and start it...... i guess its a matter of communication between us and the teacher, not a failing on victorias part,, i think that i have in the past relied on the teachers "knowing what they are doing" and not helping the teacher by communicating to them what victorias strengths are and how to use them to help her with her weaknesses......

[mydsgirl]

Oh, I am so glad you posted this. I also never hear from Emma's thereapists at this school. I had the exact same questions for the speech therapist and I plan on bringing it up at her case conference today.
Leah

[Pat]

When John-John was in school we had a comm book. Rarely would a therepist write a thing unless it was an answer to me. Speech was the worst! She would write on his report card. Missed to many days...something like that. Yea, right.
My interpretation was she didn't test for her report until the last day before the report card & he was out that day, so she was screwed. When he went to ESY there were only 20 days of school & she had a half page single spaced report. Let's see... a whole school year nothing..20 days ESY. Let's put it this way, I homeschool John-John. Loved that school NOT!
Pat

[jswanson7977]

Hi there!!

With Evan's school, I dont see much of the therapists except in passing. I have done the notebook and have asked all the therapists to put a little sentence or so indicating what they did in therapy and anything we could work on at home.

since he is in school I havent been doing that. I keep an open line of communication open--I give them our phone numbers and I call them all the time to check on progress,etc...--they are willing to have me call them--or I leave a note with the teacher for the therapist.

I dont like being left in the dark and I am always talking to the teacher and if i run into a therapist I always make sure to ask how things or going--or If I dont like something, I call an IEP or meeting--our IEP's run about 2 hours because I dont see them all the time--so I ask everything and bring up every issue!!!!

Good luck!!!