Anyone's child receive OT services in school?

[RitaE]

How is it not affecting his learning?
Because the school does not provide education to the level of Harvard prep.

They provide free and appropriate, which means 12th graders graduating with skills appropriate for High School graduates.

If you feel that your children are not being provided such (and given your constant stance on here that your children have wonderful schools it seems unlikely you'd make such a case) then by all means hire yourself an Educational Attorney and sue, the way many Special Ed parents have to do.

 

[disykat]

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...

These are perfect examples of things a parent can do at home. It is very hard to qualify at school if those issues aren't directly affecting his ability to learn. Writing alone may not do it because there are accomodations that can be made for that.

My son had speech issues. Yes, I did insist he was tested, but he never did qualify at school. He did qualify through our medical insurance and I think that was best for everyone. He didn't have to miss instruction for his therapy! This was HUGE, in my book. Usually we had appointments after school and the one year we couldn't get them after school, I took him before school and he missed about the first five minutes. We did have a copay and some expenses incurred, but not any more than we might have paid for him to be in an activity.

Yes, ask for testing (it sounds like he's already been screened?) but don't discount the possibility that you might get much better service through your medical insurance. (For example my son had individual therapy for 30 minutes where at school it would have been group for 20 minutes - and those 20 minutes would have been scheduled based on the therapist's schedule and the other kids, not chosen by me.) To me, the fact that we had limited sessions a year didn't matter - I was happy with the quality and the number of sessions probably worked out to more than he would have received at school overall.

As far as at home work, we always had homework from the speech therapist. It would have drastically slowed down his progress if I wasn't willing to work with him. It was a priority over other activities - period.

As for the English Language Learners - the kids who make the best progress are the ones with parents who "teach" them at home - many of them who do so without knowing the language themselves. And, yes, we do give them instructions and suggestions, through an interpreter, how to do so.

 

[golfgal]

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.

We did if you read my whole post, but WE had to pay for it, which is the issue.

How is it not affecting his learning?
Because the school does not provide education to the level of Harvard prep.

They provide free and appropriate, which means 12th graders graduating with skills appropriate for High School graduates.

If you feel that your children are not being provided such (and given your constant stance on here that your children have wonderful schools it seems unlikely you'd make such a case) then by all means hire yourself an Educational Attorney and sue, the way many Special Ed parents have to do.

We could go round and round with this but I don't agree that special ed should be any different then regular ed and if the focus of special ed is to get the kids to meet their highest potential, so should the regular ed. Most kids could meet "12 grade skills" EASILY by 8th grade if you want to go by that standard so therefore as soon as the kids meet those skills we should stop educating them???

Many special ed parents need to realize that there are just some things their child will NEVER be able to do and consulting all the attorneys in the world is not going to change that. Prime example, case in MN where a child was PROFOUNDLY disabled, couldn't sit up, eat, drink, toilet on her own and was NEVER going to be able to do that. Their home district put her in a special ed contained room but the parents wanted her integrated into the mainstream (totally NOT appropriate for their child but whatever). The district would not provide the full time teacher and support staff to do that so they sued the district to move her to ANOTHER district that would do that for them. It is costing their district over $180K/YEAR for ONE student to be transported back and forth to this other district, being mainstreamed into the classroom and all that it entails--keeping in mind this child is so severely brain damaged that this child will NEVER be able to even feed herself. This was an ongoing battle in the courts for several years and the district lost, unfortunately. How those parents sleep at night is beyond me.

 

[golfgal]

These are perfect examples of things a parent can do at home. It is very hard to qualify at school if those issues aren't directly affecting his ability to learn. Writing alone may not do it because there are accomodations that can be made for that.

My son had speech issues. Yes, I did insist he was tested, but he never did qualify at school. He did qualify through our medical insurance and I think that was best for everyone. He didn't have to miss instruction for his therapy! This was HUGE, in my book. Usually we had appointments after school and the one year we couldn't get them after school, I took him before school and he missed about the first five minutes. We did have a copay and some expenses incurred, but not any more than we might have paid for him to be in an activity.

Yes, ask for testing (it sounds like he's already been screened?) but don't discount the possibility that you might get much better service through your medical insurance. (For example my son had individual therapy for 30 minutes where at school it would have been group for 20 minutes - and those 20 minutes would have been scheduled based on the therapist's schedule and the other kids, not chosen by me.) To me, the fact that we had limited sessions a year didn't matter - I was happy with the quality and the number of sessions probably worked out to more than he would have received at school overall.

As far as at home work, we always had homework from the speech therapist. It would have drastically slowed down his progress if I wasn't willing to work with him. It was a priority over other activities - period.

As for the English Language Learners - the kids who make the best progress are the ones with parents who "teach" them at home - many of them who do so without knowing the language themselves. And, yes, we do give them instructions and suggestions, through an interpreter, how to do so.

Legally, unless a child has an IEP the school "can't" and doesn't HAVE to make ANY accommodations Thus, back to the issue-you aren't going to GET help if your child isn't failing, period.

 

[RitaE]

and if the focus of special ed is to get the kids to meet their highest potential, so should the regular ed.

no - the goal of special ed it to get the kids to meet either their highest potential or the same level of educational proficiency all the other students receive.

If you disagree with that then my all means start your letter writing campaign to have IDEA repealed.

I really can't comment on that case given that I know nothing about it. However given that the District lost the case I suspect there was probably much more than what you state in play.

 

[golfgal]

no - the goal of special ed it to get the kids to meet either their highest potential or the same level of educational proficiency all the other students receive.

If you disagree with that then my all means start your letter writing campaign to have IDEA repealed.

I really can't comment on that case given that I know nothing about it. However given that the District lost the case I suspect there was probably much more than what you state in play.

Does it REALLY matter though??? First, the school districts should NOT be responsible for education on that level-that should be handled at the social services level, second, who cares what was at play, the school district offered a program, if the parents didn't like that particular program they could have moved into a different district or OPEN ENROLLED their child so the other district would not have to pay for services for ONE child attending another district (which is a statewide option here). Why the court battle in the first place. Again, this is the mentality of the special ed parent personified-my child gets EVERYTHING I want them to have and screw the rest of the kids. It is just SAD.

 

[Daisy&Max]

I

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.

In fact grades do matter, the question is "Does the disability adversely affect their educational performance?" If the issue is not adversely affecting the performance (as in the kid is getting all A's) then there is no need for services. If your child was failing his classes due to his handwriting (or is currently failing because his handwriting looks like a kindergartners) then you have a case to go before the special education committee.

And as others have said, in the majority of cases you must either receive special education services for speech/language or a disability. OT and PT are considered related services and are not stand alone services.

I'm a special ed teacher (17 years worth) and the mom of 2 sped kids, one of which receives sped services. So i've worked the system on both sides.

You spew lots of stuff about special ed when you really have no idea what special ed is about. Try walking in our footsteps and then see what it is like. And if your school system is losing so much money to sped, then you need to go to school board meetings and find out where they are really taking the money from and fight them on it. Don't just sit on your computer and complain, but do something to fix the problem.

Daisy

 

[RitaE]

Does it REALLY matter though???

Of course it matters.

Most of the cases I've seen where the courts have supported the family request for costly alternatives, there is clear evidence that the school's attempts to provide for the child have resulted not only in an inappropriate educational setting - but often in extreme danger to the child.

Such as ... school refuses to provide adequate supervision and autistic child who escapes the building and nobody notices she is even missing for HOURS.

Such as ... Mother has documented evidence of case after case where she visits the school and finds her daughter parked in a wheelchair in the back of the room sitting in large amounts of feces. Mom finally gets some sort of Social Worker to agree to an inspection and when the Social Worker shows up at the school they can't even remember where they left the kid.

These are such extreme cases however that they really have nothing to do with the more common Special Ed student who I can assure you is not receiving a Gold Standard of services.

I know it angers you immensely GolfGal but quite honestly when you are the parent of a child with such extreme needs, you really don't have the time, energy, or emotional capacity to fret over whether or not GolfGal's son is going to get into Harvard. You might find that to be atrocious and wonder how they sleep at night. But I can assure you, they're probably much more concerned about pressure sores, feeding tubes, and catheters to give much of a crap what you think.

 

[golfgal]

In fact grades do matter, the question is "Does the disability adversely affect their educational performance?" If the issue is not adversely affecting the performance (as in the kid is getting all A's) then there is no need for services. If your child was failing his classes due to his handwriting (or is currently failing because his handwriting looks like a kindergartners) then you have a case to go before the special education committee.

And as others have said, in the majority of cases you must either receive special education services for speech/language or a disability. OT and PT are considered related services and are not stand alone services.

I'm a special ed teacher (17 years worth) and the mom of 2 sped kids, one of which receives sped services. So i've worked the system on both sides.

You spew lots of stuff about special ed when you really have no idea what special ed is about. Try walking in our footsteps and then see what it is like. And if your school system is losing so much money to sped, then you need to go to school board meetings and find out where they are really taking the money from and fight them on it. Don't just sit on your computer and complain, but do something to fix the problem.

Daisy

It's not just MY school, it is ALL schools and you can't seriously sit there and tell me that sped ed programs haven't gone over the top in your 17 years of experience--or more specifically special ed PARENTS, when the programs were funded through the federal government and NOT a strain on local school budgets. What percentage of kids in YOUR school are special ed and what percentage of your district budget does your special ed budget comprise and tell me that I am wrong in my assessment of the DRAIN on ALL school budgets.

Our district, personally, is in the black and does very well financially, that is until the state cut funding to the tune of 15 MILLION dollars to our district alone. Guess how much of those cuts will/CAN be absorbed by the special ed budget--NONE.

 

[golfgal]

Of course it matters.

Most of the cases I've seen where the courts have supported the family request for costly alternatives, there is clear evidence that the school's attempts to provide for the child have resulted not only in an inappropriate educational setting - but often in extreme danger to the child.

Such as ... school refuses to provide adequate supervision and autistic child who escapes the building and nobody notices she is even missing for HOURS.

Such as ... Mother has documented evidence of case after case where she visits the school and finds her daughter parked in a wheelchair in the back of the room sitting in large amounts of feces. Mom finally gets some sort of Social Worker to agree to an inspection and when the Social Worker shows up at the school they can't even remember where they left the kid.

These are such extreme cases however that they really have nothing to do with the more common Special Ed student who I can assure you is not receiving a Gold Standard of services.

I know it angers you immensely GolfGal but quite honestly when you are the parent of a child with such extreme needs, you really don't have the time, energy, or emotional capacity to fret over whether or not GolfGal's son is going to get into Harvard. You might find that to be atrocious and wonder how they sleep at night. But I can assure you, they're probably much more concerned about pressure sores, feeding tubes, and catheters to give much of a crap what you think.

But it isn't ok that I don't give a crap if their child isn't mainstreamed which isn't really what I think but that is what you are suggesting. Honestly, I really DO wonder how those parents do sleep at night, in particular, KNOWING that their demands, which I think are totally unreasonable through the many, many, many stories published in the local papers, are pulling from the rest of the school population. Again, the word REASONABLE has to come in SOMEWHERE.

 

[RitaE]

but again - I really can't have an opinion on those parents because I haven't read the case. I just know that nearly every case of similar out of the ballpark costs approved that I have seen have been much more and it usually ends up to be the case where the school has so utterly failed in their duty to the child that the court removes the child from the school altogether.

Should you care? It really doesn't matter to me. Feel how you want to feel. I think your long filled hatred toward Special Ed on this board speaks for itself.

Most parents who are "fighting" are trying to get such things as 30 to 60 minutes a week of speech, 30 minutes a week of OT, maybe an agreement to get to take tests in the resource room. Most parents who are "fighting" actually spend hours upon hours every school year just getting the schools to follow the IEP they agreed to follow. Schools are really great about putting something on paper and then filing it away never to be seen until the next year. You make think your example of that case has something to do with the "Special Ed mentality" but whatever. I can assure you that most Special Ed parents would love nothing more than to NOT have to be a Special Ed parent anymore.

OP, I'm really sorry that we did this to your thread. I'll just repeat. Teachers very often speak in code and what I'm hearing from your post is that she wants you to request an evaluation.

 

[jenlynn0808]

Guess how much of those cuts will/CAN be absorbed by the special ed budget--NONE.

Really? I'll be sure to tell my cousin the Special Ed teacher, and all my colleagues who work in the special ed programs this.

I guess the pay cuts, not freezes, but cuts, the doubling of the case loads, the cut in budgeted supplies (that now come out of the teachers pocket), the unpaid extra hours they put in filing out the paperwork for Medicaid billing, the conferences/classes they are required to take to maintain their licenses that are no longer paid for by districts, but out of the special ed teachers own 'cut' salary doesn't apply here. I could go on...

Where do you think those cuts came from? The Special Ed budgets in the districts those teachers work in. The economy is bad, most schools aren't funded in a reliable and consistent manner. Districts are making hard choices and cuts are being made...across the board. It may not be the amount or percentages you would like to see, but it is there.

 

[Daisy&Max]

It's not just MY school, it is ALL schools and you can't seriously sit there and tell me that sped ed programs haven't gone over the top in your 17 years of experience--or more specifically special ed PARENTS, when the programs were funded through the federal government and NOT a strain on local school budgets. What percentage of kids in YOUR school are special ed and what percentage of your district budget does your special ed budget comprise and tell me that I am wrong in my assessment of the DRAIN on ALL school budgets.

Our district, personally, is in the black and does very well financially, that is until the state cut funding to the tune of 15 MILLION dollars to our district alone. Guess how much of those cuts will/CAN be absorbed by the special ed budget--NONE.

Well, that's interesting that you think sped gets everything they want and / or need. That must be why all the sped teachers in my building were the last to get new equipment and technology that we are expected to use with our students. Yep we aren't counted in the "core" classes because our kids are sped. We don't get the equipment until there are cast offs from other schools or till sped budget has the money. Yes we can check it out from the library but that makes it hard when there are so 10 of us trying to use the same piece of equipment. Oh and I don't get all the supplies I need either because the budget doesn't allow for them. But hey our sports programs get everything they need because we want to make sure they can get into college.

I don't know why you have such a thing against sped, I guess if you had a sped kid you would feel different about it. But you just keep complaining about sped programs and kids and maybe one day it will be what YOU think it should be!

Daisy

 

[HelenePA]

Okay dont even get into SpEd with GolfGal its useless.. thankfully she'll never "get it". I have a IEP meeting on the 30th about my dd10's speech therepy at school.. I want her to stop going there or at least to one teacher.. I seem to have angered her in some way and get snarky notes each week. Last week we had a yelling match over the phone, good times good times! My dd gets speech outside of school which is NOT limited on our insurance as long as they use the correct code, last year they were using the wrong one and it was limited to six months. I checked again in our book and it says its not limited thankfully we got that all straightened out! My dd did do handwriting with out tears in school, we tried to do it outside on OUR dime but they had NOTHING after school hours AT ALL.

 

[MomRN]

I haven't read through all the responses, but did want to say a little something about my childhood experiences with writing. See, I write "funny" I don't use a pincer grasp. I place my writing utensil in between my middle and third finger. This used to drive my elementary school teachers crazy. Ab-so-lute-ly nuts. I had all these different writing tools, and I would painfully, but effectively switch the pen/pencil so that it was in between my middle and third finger.

It was a second grade parent teacher conference that my dad said "enough" He asked the teacher if my writing was legible the way I wrote. And it was. So he asked what exactly the problem was. What did it matter how I held my pencil as long as I was getting the job done? No more problems..extra tools or teaching time... I was left alone.

And I still write "funny"

Anyway, the point of the story is to make sure he is comfortable with the way he is being taught to write. My 4 year old is in the beginning stages of writing, but is still trying to figure out his dominant hand. His preschool teacher asked if we wanted them to push to one hand or the other. Nope, he'll figure it out... or maybe he'll use both for the rest of his life.

 

[palavra]

OP, I understand how difficult it is to get services from the school. We are trying to get OT from the local public school system even though our daughter is in private school. She has been tested already and has ADHD and sensory disorder. The OT is for her sensory problems. She does also have very poor handwriting. It has been a battle, and nothing has been resolved yet even though I have a written request for OT from her pediatrician. Thankfully, I have a good friend who is an OT, and she has shared some things that we can do at home. It is helping, but I still hope she will be able to get OT during the school year too.

 

[torinsmom]

OP--In many states, OT is a related service, which means if the child does not have an IEP for learning disabilities or speech, they will not do a formal evaluation. If you think there are other issues, you can request an evaluation, but it would be quicker and probably more effective to go through your insurance if OT is covered. If it is a problem, definitely do something, so your child isn't having this problem in middle and high school.

The IDEA act requires that any child who has an IEP receives services that are outlined in the IEP. If the caseload exceeds what the EC person can handle, the district can and will hire someone else to pick up the slack.

 

[smb6]

I have not read through all the posts, but two of my kids recieved OT in kindergarten- and we also went through inshurance. As they get older I prefer to take them myself so they are not pulled from instructional times. A lot of minor OT issues can be nipped in the bude early so I would definately encourage you to go through your inshurance and get it started sooner rather than later...