I can't make this stuff up!!!! SERIOUSLY!!!???

OT Amy was only O.K. this week.

I will remind you that my plan this week was to sit back and observe what AMY does instead of making a lot of interjections and asking questions. I have had a lot of questions over the past two weeks, because she is new...

Within 3 minutes she annoyed me.

She came in [late] and asked me how the week had been & if any of the suggestions had

helped. I told her the distraction of something in his hands, or changing the marching to carrying were all working well. And, I told her I felt like the 'beach ball in the chair' for mealtime could work, but we always have to get it just right and more often than not, he wants it out. But I have seen it work.

I told her that the SLP wanted to know what new things we are working on & when I mentioned the beach ball, she told me the EI center has a whole closet of things to check out, one of which are all different types of 'wiggle seats'. And that I thought one of those might work better for him.

Amy's response: "I don't go to the CDSA. The Beach Ball is the same thing, just cheaper."

Seriously??!!

I tried again... I told her that I was under the impression that what could be checked out at the CDSA would be free, and that the beach ball kind of crushes under him instead of giving him any buoyancy.

Amy's response: "The beach ball is

the same thing. That's what it's supposed to do. I don't go to the CDSA."

Seriously??!!

I dropped it. I was baffled and annoyed. I got REAL quiet, because I was put off and not quite sure what to do with such blatant refusal.

About 20 min's after our 'conversation' ended, she comes out with 'Do you ever talk to Tammy (our Service Coordinator)? Maybe you should call her to see if she can get you one of those seats.'

Another 20 min's pass and she tells me that she has a headache. Ok, I have bad headaches sometimes... they can certainly make me crabby. It was duely noted, but didn't take back any part of the crushing blow to my impression of her: Disappointed.

..................................................................

What we DID do:

She seemed to be in a kind of 'assesment' mode for fine motor today:

She let DS color and asked him to color on different parts of the paper; mastered.

Asked DS to copy shapes such as 'S', square, and then a couple abstracts; mastered.

Asked DS to copy shape patterns with them touching, such as Square w/circle touching the bottom corner; mastered.

Drew a stick figure and asked DS to draw eyes, nose, mouth, hands, feet, hair, ears..etc.. on the body; mastered to a 4-6 year old skill level.

Gave DS an assortment of blocks and asked him to copy a straight tower and a few other structures that she made; mastered.

Showed DS a structure, knocked it over and asked DS to rebuild it; mastered

I sat in amazement. I knew he could do SOME of it, but not all. I knew his memorization skills were helping, but I was MOST amazed that when he copied her structures, he didn't match the colors of the blocks to the same as what she used. I would have expected that of him. I take that as a GOOD thing, he wasn't so rigid in the task that he needed it to be perfectly matched.

Then we moved on to socks on, shoes on, and outside to play ball. She continued working with his ball catching and kicking. She assesed his skills going down and back up the stairs outside, and then we were back in to take shoes and socks off.

Back inside, she did a wheelbarrow crawl and 'bear' crawl with him to improve his shoulder muscles and input. She also wants us to use these are distractions when he gets to marching, twirling hair, and singing his ditty.

Then she told us that a class she works with in preschool are JUST starting with helping the kids put on Jackets. And that working on even getting a shirt on is more of a 4 year old skill, that she would not emphasise that right now, as it is developmentally out of his league.

I'm not saying he's REALLY behind on those things.... but I disagree.