Anyone's child receive OT services in school?

[luvestodizz]

My DS is in Kindergarten and having trouble with writing. At parent teacher conference the teacher told us she recommended him to get OT but she was told since he does well they really have no room for him now.She sent home a packet today with OT exercises, and websites I can go to buy materials to work with him. I found it so odd that they did this. We did ask for a formal evaluation through the Board of Education, but everything moves so slowly. .I am going to start working with him but wonder if I should just get him OT through our insurance. We would have a copay for it. We have so many appointments and activities already, in school would be better.
I also have to mention he got a new girl in his class in October who does not speak English. At open school this week, I saw her being pulled out to get language services. I wonder if her parents got a packet with teaching English instructions.

 

[jenlynn0808]

I know, you would think a parent could answer such a simple question. DS is in Kinder also, at the end of Sept. the Kinder team sent home a note saying that our son was invited to join the Fine Motors Zero Hour Class (this class meets at 8 am, classes start at 9, hence zero hour). DS was identified as needing the class because his pencil grip was week and incorrect. The class meets twice a week from Oct. 4-Dec. 20 and 2 of the K teachers run it. The kids do activities that are mean to strengthen their hand muscles and increase their fine motor skills. So DS is getting OT services, but not from an OT...which is why I said maybe.

 

[belle&beast]

I am a speech pathologist in our school system and work very closely with the OTs. Every state is different, but where I live, OT is a service that cannot be provided without a full IEP, meaning without receiving resource services (special education). In order to get resource services a child muct be determined to be eligible with a label such as autism, learning disability, mental handicap or other health impairment that causes difficulty in school. This may be the case where you live and your son's teacher is trying to give you some things to try at home.

English as a new language services are a totally different type of service and I am pretty sure they are federally mandated, while therapy services are determined by each state's regulations. If your state is like mine, you will get the OT evaluation, but he will not be eligible for services through the school unless he is determined to be eligible for special education.

My son is in first grade and is struggling with handwriting, but he will not qualify for OT services in school. My SIL is a kindergarten teacher and she has given me a website to practice handwriting at home: www.zaner-bloser.com , and my OT friends have given me some ideas, too. I am going to have his vision checked- not for acuity- but a developmental vision assessment for things like visual tracking, and how his eyes work together.

Some ideas for things you can do at home: use play doh to strengthen his hands, break crayons and pencils so he has to use a pincer grasp to hold them if he does not have proper grasp. I also used an easel with my son when he was younger to learn his letters. We use a program called "Handwriting Without Tears" in our preschools and it is very successful in helping the kids get the basics through what looks like play.

Good luck and hopefully you will be able to get services through school!

 

[kacaju]

My DS is in Kindergarten and having trouble with writing. At parent teacher conference the teacher told us she recommended him to get OT but she was told since he does well they really have no room for him now.She sent home a packet today with OT exercises, and websites I can go to buy materials to work with him. I found it so odd that they did this. We did ask for a formal evaluation through the Board of Education, but everything moves so slowly. .I am going to start working with him but wonder if I should just get him OT through our insurance. We would have a copay for it. We have so many appointments and activities already, in school would be better.
I also have to mention he got a new girl in his class in October who does not speak English. At open school this week, I saw her being pulled out to get language services. I wonder if her parents got a packet with teaching English instructions.

as mentioned unless he has an IEP it is hard to get these services. Many times insurance feels this is a school issue and you may find you are given a hard time from your insurance.
Go ahead and go through your insurance and see what you can get for him. It is well worth it for him to get help now, instead of waiting until he really learns bad handwriting habits

 

[deedeetoo]

My daughter had trouble with writing in Kindergarten. Even though the writing looked good, she was holding the pencil in a very strange way. They gave me exercises to do with her to help her do it right and said to be observant and remind her often on how to hold it, which they were also doing in the classroom. She didn't get any special services from the school.

 

[golfgal]

There is a very good chance you won't get any help through the school. Our DS15 was/is the same way. His handwriting is HORRIBLE. We requested OT through the school but since he was an "A" student, they didn't even consider it . If your insurance will pay for it, you can have your doctor prescribe OT for him or you can do like I did and any time he got marked down for being "messy" with his work, show them the rejecting letter for the OT request.

This really sets me off, especially on threads here where parents keep telling other parents you have to "fight for everything' and don't take no for an answer no matter the cost. Maybe if the special ed parents would realize that by doing this they are taking away services from other kids that need them too, they will be more reasonable.

We did a lot with him at home. A friend of ours is an OT and gave us a lot of tips, etc. The biggest one is to only let him write and color with little pencils/crayons. No more then about 2-3" long. It forces them to hold the pencil correctly and use their muscles correctly. When I was telling this to his 3rd grade teacher because she kept tossing out his little pencils she apologized because she thought that the little pencils were bad for his writing. She then switched all the kids with sloppy handwriting to little pencils . If you golf, the pencils golf courses use are good, but no longer then those.

 

[MM27]

We have to do a referral in order to get a child to receive OT services. Unfortunately, it does take some time to get the process moving where they actually get the services, but our OTs are not always at school. My district has a contract with one of the local hospitals, so the OT is only in my school once a week. I would say, ask the teacher to get the ball rolling on her end and you practice at home with the materials she offered on your end.

ESL and OT are two totally different things. If a child registers as a non-English speaking student, they are tested by the ESL teachers (not child study team) and if they need language assistance, they are placed in an ESL pull out/push in program. A child with difficulty writing can still learn in a regular classroom, a child that doesn't understand the language can't.

 

[kirstenb1]

Our dd who is 5 attends special ed preschool and gets OT, PT and ST. The OT and PT the school provides isn't enough, so we also have a weekly session with a private provider. It's not cheap, but we've seen huge gains.

More directly to the OP's situation: we have good friends who's son had handwriting problems. They also went with an OT provider outside of the school and were very pleased with his development. In that situation, the OT "graduated" him out of the program after about 8 mths.

 

[belle&beast]

This really sets me off, especially on threads here where parents keep telling other parents you have to "fight for everything' and don't take no for an answer no matter the cost. Maybe if the special ed parents would realize that by doing this they are taking away services from other kids that need them too, they will be more reasonable.

This is not true- one child's services should never take away from another's. IEPs- Individualized Education Plans- are just what it says, individualized for each child. They are not written with anyone but the child in need of the services in mind.

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

Not a parent, but a sped teacher. A lot of kids who do not have learning disabilties have poor handwriting. I don't think that our OT sees any students for handwriting practice alone. All the students have other disabilities. As another poster said ,it will depend on the laws in your state. Part of the problem is that OT is expensive, and many districts have to contract with hospitals for their OTs. There simply isn't enough money for every kid with bad handwriting to receive therapy.

Our OT will provide grips and consult with teachers on strategies to support the skills in the classroom.You could certainly ask for that. Good luck.

 

[kirstenb1]

There is a very good chance you won't get any help through the school. Our DS15 was/is the same way. His handwriting is HORRIBLE. We requested OT through the school but since he was an "A" student, they didn't even consider it . If your insurance will pay for it, you can have your doctor prescribe OT for him or you can do like I did and any time he got marked down for being "messy" with his work, show them the rejecting letter for the OT request.

This really sets me off, especially on threads here where parents keep telling other parents you have to "fight for everything' and don't take no for an answer no matter the cost. Maybe if the special ed parents would realize that by doing this they are taking away services from other kids that need them too, they will be more reasonable.

We did a lot with him at home. A friend of ours is an OT and gave us a lot of tips, etc. The biggest one is to only let him write and color with little pencils/crayons. No more then about 2-3" long. It forces them to hold the pencil correctly and use their muscles correctly. When I was telling this to his 3rd grade teacher because she kept tossing out his little pencils she apologized because she thought that the little pencils were bad for his writing. She then switched all the kids with sloppy handwriting to little pencils . If you golf, the pencils golf courses use are good, but no longer then those.

Okay, you are sort of contradicting yourself. First you say that your son was rejected for OT services because he is an A student. Here, if his handwriting was extremely bad, he would get OT services regardless of his GPA.

So, that's a perfect example of where you could have, and maybe should have chosen to fight. It sounds like your school was not meeting his needs.

Then on the other hand, you are slamming parents for fighting for their child's needs. If they are in a school district that doesn't provide adequate compliance with IEP's, then you bet I'd fight it. Any parent worth their salt would fight it. If this were YOUR kid, I hope you'd fight it.

Look our district does a reasonable job of taking care of our younger dd's "educational" needs. Which is what they're supposed to do. Unfortunately she has a lot of sensory issues that interfere with her ability to learn. The school doesn't address those, so we go the private route with that. I think what a lot of people miss is the fact that having a special-needs child is all consuming, emotionally, socially and financially. We're used to an uphill battle. So we will fight if the school is non-compliant with her IEP.

 

[kirstenb1]

I need to modify one thing I said. Golfgal, if he was making straight A's then I'm thnking his teachers could read his handwriting. If this was the case, he wouldn't have qualified for the OT, because his educational needs were being met. However, if they couldn't read it, then they couldn't grade his work, hence he would have needed an IEP and received OT.

 

[RitaE]

IEPs really aren't given without a documented disability. A Doctor's prescription isn't enough for the school system. Basically what is needed is

A Disability (Diagnosis)
Evidence that the disability interferes with the students ability to be educated.

A parent can request testing and then if they disagree with the results of the testing there are avenues available to refute those. But generally an "A" student is not going to receive Occupational Therapy because obviously their disability isn't interfering with their ability to receive an appropriate education.

One child receiving services does not "steal" from other students. Students who qualify for services do so based upon their own set of criteria.

And when parents speak of "fighting" for everything needed they are usually referring to such shocking requests as a child with a 75% language delay getting a whole 30 minutes a week of Speech Therapy and somebody in the Resource Room making sure they understand the instructions on the English test.

 

[RitaE]

My DS is in Kindergarten and having trouble with writing. At parent teacher conference the teacher told us she recommended him to get OT but she was told since he does well they really have no room for him now.

BTW OP - we went really off on a tangent here.....

But in my experience when a teacher says things like that to a parent they are STRONGLY HINTING that they think you should exercise your right as a parent to have your child tested. Schools cannot refuse to evaluate. If you put in the request in writing, your child will be evaluated.

There are some school districts where the staff can come under a lot of pressure from Admin not to inform parents of these things so they kind of speak in code about it and hope you pick up the ball and go with it.

If you don't understand the procedure for getting started, I'm sure the Disability Board would be happy to help you out.

 

[golfgal]

This is not true- one child's services should never take away from another's. IEPs- Individualized Education Plans- are just what it says, individualized for each child. They are not written with anyone but the child in need of the services in mind.

It is very true, at least in our state, special ed hours are allocated to each school based on the population of a school. So if a school is allocated say 30 hours/week and there are 5 kids that need 10 hours/week each, that means some kids aren't going to get what they need OR the district has to pull the money from somewhere else to meet the needs of those kids, taking away programs for other kids. Now, if say 2 of those kids' parents DEMAND more, they are then taking away MORE time and money from other kids. There are only so many hours in the day and only so much money to go around so kids that seem to be able to 'function' ok in school but could maybe do BETTER don't get any help.

DS's grades should have ZERO bearing on his needing assistance with his fine motor control, in an ideal world, in the real world, there just isn't the money to go around to help all the kids that need help and we have been lucky that teachers have given him the benefit of the doubt. Even as a sophomore in high school his handwriting looks like a kindergartner's.

 

[golfgal]

IEPs really aren't given without a documented disability. A Doctor's prescription isn't enough for the school system. Basically what is needed is

A Disability (Diagnosis)
Evidence that the disability interferes with the students ability to be educated.

A parent can request testing and then if they disagree with the results of the testing there are avenues available to refute those. But generally an "A" student is not going to receive Occupational Therapy because obviously their disability isn't interfering with their ability to receive an appropriate education.

One child receiving services does not "steal" from other students. Students who qualify for services do so based upon their own set of criteria.

And when parents speak of "fighting" for everything needed they are usually referring to such shocking requests as a child with a 75% language delay getting a whole 30 minutes a week of Speech Therapy and somebody in the Resource Room making sure they understand the instructions on the English test.

No, they are not-heck one parent here was going to fight for the school to pay for before school daycare because the school schedule didn't match her work schedule .

 

[tiggger1]

my almost 4 year old year old receives OT/PT, PT and speech from school. His OT/PT is more of a sensory group. It really isnt for fine motor but for more of a gross motor with a little bit of fine motor thrown in. My son's school will not give you services unless they pertain to school, he gets it because he has tight heel cords and balance issues...as well as sensory issues. He still has issues with stairs, he just started to run ( very slowly) and he has a funny gait...he has a hard time with 2 footed jumping...all of these things he needs for school so he qualifies for services.. yet his fine motor is great...

I would request an OT evaluation. they cannot deny him the evaluation. Worse comes to worse they will tell you he doesn't qualify and can either give you tips or you can seek outpatient services. My insurance will cover so many OT/PT sessions..

Other tips for handwriting is getting DS is pencil grip. it will help with writing..you can also gets some writing activities like tracing letters. I work with a few kids in the kindergarten class I volunteer at and I will write a word with a highlighter and they trace it.. Then we move to writing words with little dots and then they trace that until they can do it themselves. also doing alot of fine motor activities such as stringing beads, using tweezers to pick up timy items like beads, or pom poms, mini marshmallows. The game Dont Spill the beans is a great fine motor game...also perler beads are great for fine motor...

 

[RitaE]

parents might request all kinds of things but it is extremely unlikely they would receive something like that through the school.

Here something like that would be referred to an agency which assists with respite, transportation and at home care services for families that have difficulties in fully providing those.

But how strange that your special ed department is limited, given the wonderful reputation of the Minnesota school system.

Heck, even our crappy school District hired more speech therapists over the summer once they realized that their IEP mandated hours exceeded staff capability. Not one single student with a documented need had their service hours cut.

 

[golfgal]

parents might request all kinds of things but it is extremely unlikely they would receive something like that through the school.

Here something like that would be referred to an agency which assists with respite, transportation and at home care services for families that have difficulties in fully providing those.

But how strange that your special ed department is limited, given the wonderful reputation of the Minnesota school system.

Heck, even our crappy school District hired more speech therapists over the summer once they realized that their IEP mandated hours exceeded staff capability. Not one single student with a documented need had their service hours cut.

Which is EXACTLY my point-that money had to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the general operating fund from the school, so the AP math classes won't get new textbooks for another 4 years and the computer lab won't get updated from 2003 for another 5 years to pay for the extra speech therapists and time. The special ed kids are NOT the one's getting their programs cut, it is the 90% of the REST of the kids that are.

Now, I am being somewhat facetious about this comment but in your example, they hired extra staff so those kids could get 1 hour/day vs 45 minutes (I am making these numbers up), so that extra 15 minutes is going to make however much difference. What's to say that an extra 15 minutes/day in Algebra for my child isn't going to mean the difference between him being accepted at Harvard vs having to settle for a state school? How is that not affecting his learning? This is the point I am TRYING to make, everyone talks about special ed kids and how that extra 15 minutes/day is going to make all the world of difference in their lives yet that extra 15 minutes means nothing to the rest of the students and since they are getting good grades, who cares. What if that extra 15 minutes means they get GREAT grades vs good grades?? Why are they LESS important.

Basically, Special ed funding and programs have gone so far over the top that they are starting to become a detriment to the REST of the school because the programs are SOOOO expensive and the money just isn't there to do it all.

 

[Mkrop]

It is very true, at least in our state, special ed hours are allocated to each school based on the population of a school. So if a school is allocated say 30 hours/week and there are 5 kids that need 10 hours/week each, that means some kids aren't going to get what they need OR the district has to pull the money from somewhere else to meet the needs of those kids, taking away programs for other kids. Now, if say 2 of those kids' parents DEMAND more, they are then taking away MORE time and money from other kids. There are only so many hours in the day and only so much money to go around so kids that seem to be able to 'function' ok in school but could maybe do BETTER don't get any help.

DS's grades should have ZERO bearing on his needing assistance with his fine motor control, in an ideal world, in the real world, there just isn't the money to go around to help all the kids that need help and we have been lucky that teachers have given him the benefit of the doubt. Even as a sophomore in high school his handwriting looks like a kindergartner's.

Why didnt you get him help privately if it is THAT BAD?

DS7 has a 504 that has him receiving both OT and PT, he has been receiving both since age 1.

I would request an evaluation and then go from there.

The Handwriting Without Tears program is great. So is the little pencil idea, hiding object in silly putty, like a penny and making him strecth it out, holding pennies and sticking them trhough a container with a lid and small slit.

Look into your insurance but many are surprised when their insurance does not cover that many visits or none at all. Ours at the time only covered 6 months worth a year and then would not pay for the rest of the year.