Debbie - I asked her about a listening program because I about begged the private OT we had been seeing for about 2 years to do some kind of listening program with him because I knew how incredibly sensitive his hearing was...and he kept blowing me off and made comments that it doesn't really work or it's not suitable for young children...she said that she had already put that in his paperwork/write up and that she would like to do Theraeutic Listening...she said she wasn't a keen follower of subjecting children to some of the really intense listening therapies that required long listening periods over a 2-3 week period of time - and she did follow up that with the fact that she has heard about some good outcomes for some patients that have gone through intense listening therapy programs but that she really didn't want to subject my little guy to that and wanted to start out with something she thought he could tolerate...she then stated that her center has a check out procedure so we can check out materials/headphones to try them at home before buying them so that families don't put money down on something that might not be a good match for them...
she did not do the SIPT because we had already gotten an SPD diagnoses 2 years ago and she looked at the information from our old OT - we also told her that our insurance did not cover assessment so we would like to stick with using some assessments he hasn't already had in hopes of giving us a fuller picture of his strengths and weaknesses. Thanks so much for reassuring me! We had been going to the only OT in town that worked with sensory children and he did a lot of work with cp, downs synd, and autistic children and my son went to him for 2 years..the last 5 months of that time period became a joke for therapy. The main OT took on more patients than he could handle and it became a circus - my son's therapy session was pretty much whatever had been done with the client the moment before my son came in - it wasn't tapered to his needs at all...we began to stop seeing the OT in the sessions at all and instead were stuck with interns that spent more time gossiping with each other than paying attention to my son and the last thing that did us in was when they began to physically restrain him in a chair and forced him to complete coloring/writing worksheets while he cried hysterically that his hand hurt. He was SO traumatized after the first time they did that that we refused to go back. How in the world could you do that to a 4 year old at the time especially one who has weak muscle tone and has severe issues with even being able to sit upright and hold a pencil!!
