Beginning Therapy

Developmental Therapy - DT We had our first DT group on June 24. It is supposed to last for about an hour, and upon arriving, I really wasn't too sure what DT was supposed to even do for my child. We walked into a building, much smaller than expected, and saw a handful of other parents with their 2 & 3 year olds. Everyone took off their shoes as we entered the 'ball room'. They use the ball room to get all the wiggles out and also to work on transitioning from one room to the next. Once we were done in the ball room (we just threw around balls and talked about sharing), we transitioned into the therapy room. In the therapy room there is a painting easel, a small shelf of toys, and a water box. They let the kids free play, then sat everyone down for a story, played in the water some, and then we were done. Both of the therapists were nice, but no-one showed any interest in what my son's specific needs were. I was also a bit disturbed with one of the therapists holding down one child during the story asking him 'What did you have for breakfast, whats wrong with you, why are you so fidgety'. I wasn't too pleased with our first therapy session, but I decided to give it another chance. As it was, I had just begun and didn't really know what to expect anyway. Speech-Language Pathology - SLP We had our first SLP therapy on June 25. SLP is done at our home. The therapist came right in and started playing with him. She asked some questions as she went to find out what he specifically needed to work on. In the past, when we would ask him questions; eg. What do you want to drink? Juice or Milk?; he would say 'Juice, Milk'. She explained that this is called Echolalia. He echos each question that we ask of him so that he can process it. She noticed this first thing and worked with him on choices. She had a little bag of trains and as she would pull them out, she would say 'Green Train or Blue Train?' His answer... 'Green Train, Blue Train' . I wasn't surprised. So the therapist said... wait... watch this... as she gave him just a few extra seconds to answer the question.... he said 'Green Train, Blue Train................Green Train.' BREAKTHROUGH!!! He made a choice!!! What!! He has a choice!!! I had never seen him do that before. I had no idea that he really understood that we were asking him a question let alone which one he wanted. Needless to say, the first SLP went very well. Occupational Therapy - OT OT's are harder to find. We have not yet started OT, but the service coordinator is working hard to find one for us.