Anyway, I managed to sort through the stack on Saturday and at least sort it into a manageable set of information. I ran across his IFSP & decided to take a gander at the professional lingo that described my son when he was 23 months old. In bold Black and White 'Consistant with a diagnosis of Autism' still has a shock value. However, that's not what I'm fixated on tonight.
Right under the 'Sensory Observation' section it states 'OT evaluation is recommended to further address his sensory processing skills due to qualitative differences.'
So, that proves-- There was not an OT evaluation at our initial diagnosis appointment.
Raises the question-- Does what Kitty did with him back in August count as an official evaluation? Because it wasn't any sort of standardized test to my knowledge - and if my mind serves me - I beleive she even called it 'informal'.
And brings upon action-- I will be calling Tammy on Monday to get a copy of the OT evauation that is supposedly on record, and thus stopping him from the availability of another eval within the year.
I think that something got swept under my radar while I was on watch. Easy to do when you don't fully understand something. But this might work to our advantage....stay tuned...
7 comments:
ahhh yes, the sea of paper and those paper trips down memory lane...I know it well.
As for OT eval, EI only did an informal one for Brad too. His first formal motor test ("Mullen") came when we got a second opinion for him last August. (First opinion doc didn't do motor testing). His second formal motor eval (the "Peabody test") came when we got him evaluated by our town for school. As far as I know, that is.
Every test Jaymes has ever had has been really informal. Hard to do a formal, standardized type test with a young child with Autism. We've done a lot of that Vineland assessment, (the one you fill out about the child), but that was for all therapies, not just OT.
If you get a formal testing session done, I do hope you'll blog about it. I'm curious how they would be done.
By formal evaluation, I only mean something that has a measurable result. There are things you can do with a child (in this case I would expect playfully) that would 'measure' his sensory needs.
I blogged about his OT Evaluation when we FIRST started OT-- http://notjustlabeled.blogspot.com/2008/08/ot-evaluation.html --
And upon re-reading that and jogging my memory, I see that she did not test him across the board. For whatever reason, the focus was strictly on Tactile, fine motor and feeding. In my opinion, a 'formal' evaluation is one where they take the whole sensory system and address questions/observations/games about them ALL and rule out underlying issues.
As far as I'm concerned, what they did was take a mom's limited knowledge and test exactly and only what she asked for - and did the child a disservice by not testing the whole.
I am working on getting a copy of that evaluation - because I'm sure there are things that went on that weren't apparant to me. If it was sub-par and did not test the whole sensory system, then I am going to fight for another.
Maybe I'm just pulling at straws... idk.
According to the IFSP He was tested with the Mullen (MSEL) and 'Welcome to my World'
It was a long while before we got a full OT eval... done through the local school. Hope you get to the bottom of it - not familiar with "Welcome to my World."
Does anyone agree/disagree with me on this: I almost want to take him to an outpatient OT (already have one that was open to seeing him) and get his eval done there before the school system gets a hold of him and does their version of an OT eval. I am just not pleased 100% with what we've had so far & no matter WHO does an eval, we only get 1/year (on insurance).
I think that's a great idea. The school eval is going to be geared to making him look as proficient as possible. Ditto for language.
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