If your DC receives EI services please come in - UPDATE 9/23

I have posted about this before so I think I know what I need to do - but would love some feedback.

What are some activities that your therapist does with your child?

Jack's therapist has brought the same things since day 1. The kid is bored and frustrated. He has good days and bad days - but mostly it's a fight to get him to sit with her.

I'm shot - I don't have the energy to wrestle him to "Play" with her. He should want to do this.

I don't want to change therapists and regret it - but I also don't want to waste my sons time.

I hate this and wish I knew what the right thing to do was. I think that since I am constantly back in this same position I already need to know what I have to do - but would love to hear some feedback on your therapists.

Thanks!

UPDATE!!!
So, I bit the bullet after this thread and called my coordinator! I just spoke to our new therapist and she starts on Friday. I am so excited and nervous (nervous that Jack won't like this one either- but I'm hoping that I'm wrong!)

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond and gave me the courage to change therapists!

Update 9/23:
I can't thank you all enough, Jack's new therapist came today and even though she was only here for one session I can see how much better she is with him. She is less structured and much more go with the flow with Jack. He stayed with her for the entire 45 minute session....I don't think we got that once with his old therapist - at best we got him to pay attention for 15-20 minutes.

Thanks again for motivating me to change therapists! If only I listened to all of you sooner!

Message edited 9/23/2009 5:28:07 PM.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

i'm a speech therapist and did one of my internships in EI.
we did a lot of "cooking" with the kids. we would make pudding and cut up fruit to put in it to work on getting them to say things like " cut" " stir", "fruit in" "milk in"... that kind of stuff.
i know one time we made a "craft" and basically just filled old soda bottles with some water, soap, and food coloring to work on words like 'shake" ( they would shake the bottle at the end to make bubbles). and also get them try to say "bubbles"
the therapist that i was working with had those dot markers and she would try to get the kids to immitate "dot dot dot" while they were using them.
we would put stickers on the different parts of their body to try to get them to name parts of the body
the therapist had these animals that you could dip in water and they would stick on the fridge, and we would use those to get the kids to immitate the animal sounds ( we would put them on the fridge, and as the kid took them off we would try to get them to immitate the animal sounds)
hope that helps! let me know if you have any questions!

Message edited 9/10/2009 7:01:48 PM.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Message edited 9/10/2009 7:01:11 PM.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

she does NONE of this. Nothing creative. He has been playing with the same puzzle since day 1. The few toys she does bring - he is so bored with.

I said I would buy whatever she needed - she said we have everything here - but has never asked me to use anything or get something ready for the next session.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

DS has been in EI since he was 15 months old... he is now 25 months old...

they usually bring different toys with them all the time... but some are the same from when he 1st started.

how long as his therapist been with him... they should have moved on to more age appropriate toys, or maybe they dont think he can move on.

i dont know your DS to know if he has improved or not, but they should stir it up, and do age appropriate things with him.

we deal with 7 different therapists plus the 3 he has at school, 6 days a week, and the things they are asking from him are much harder then 10 months ago, but AJ still likes to play with some "baby" toys so they bring those as reinforcements

if you are NOT happy, i would switch therapists.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Ugh- she needs to go Diana. Don't feel bad at ALL. You've put in enough time I think, and it isn't working for Jack it seems.

I've worked in EI and have never had the issues you described. Initially, I've had little ones act out but NEVER after the kind of time you've spent with this one therapist. Speech therapy at that age should be FUN. If he's not interested or bored, then it won't work.

Do NOT feel bad. You need to do what is best for Jack. And DON'T think it has anything to do with him. Some therapists and kids just aren't a good "fit". The therapist should have recognized this by now.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Posted by Porrruss

Ugh- she needs to go Diana. Don't feel bad at ALL. You've put in enough time I think, and it isn't working for Jack it seems.

I've worked in EI and have never had the issues you described. Initially, I've had little ones act out but NEVER after the kind of time you've spent with this one therapist. Speech therapy at that age should be FUN. If he's not interested or bored, then it won't work.

Do NOT feel bad. You need to do what is best for Jack. And DON'T think it has anything to do with him. Some therapists and kids just aren't a good "fit". The therapist should have recognized this by now.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

tell her point blank that he is bored and either offer her your toys or ask if she has something new. if things don't change fast then let her go! he's not going to learn anything if he's frustrated, bored and unhappy.

i know how hard it is to let someone that you've been working with go but i did it with my ds' 1st ot and sp and i am sooooooo glad i did!!! it was like night and day and he made so much more progress this way! i made the service coordinater tell them something, like we were going to start therapy in school just so i didn't hurt their feelings (not l`ike i should've cared...)

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

I have 6 therapists, ABA, speech and OT. And maybe PT.

We have great "fun" therapists and meltowns in others.

This is a hot topic for us at this moment because EJ is back to meltowns again with 2 therapists but not with the others or rarely (a bad day!). Even the new OT is having better success in attention and she just started with him.

What we noticed is that those who have success bring toys, sing to him, etc. The 2 that don't are very "technical" and that's not flying with DS.

One of those is the team leader.

So right now we are "are we sucking it up for 1 year and have DS deal with?" or "gosh we have another year to go and we can't do this".

I think EJ is just not clicking with them. The personality is not clicking.

I would bring it up to her. I ask my therapist what I should buy. I have to buy different toys. It's been 3 months and he is done with this toys. 4 therapists bring toys or new toys and even left some at my house (that we only use for sessions) and that has help a lot.

Those are the questions I just asked during a session last week with our team leader.

- we noticed EJ is having more eye contact in some sessions vs others.
- how do we change this pattern?
- do we need to change our approach and do more playful tasks (some do and those are successful)... but we can't really "hurt" anyone's feeling.
- what can we do to make the sessions more succesful?

Etc...

Good luck!

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Honestly? Sounds like its not a match.

Noah loves when our's comes and forgets I'm even there, I think thats how it should be..or close enough. I can see you feel bad, but Don't...Find someone he loves instead....It will be so much easier on you I bet.

Our's does a lot...she brings activities like finger paints, markers , play doh, bubbles etc.

Lots of books, and puzzles...sticker books...brings him things he likes..play bugs, trucks, cars.

Plays with his toys.

Plays in the kitchen sink with him, plays in his room, talks to him about his clothes,/daily life style activities like getting dressed and sometimes helps get him dressed.

They play in the mirror in the bathroom a lot for facial expressions.

In the Summer, we went for walks to the Park down the block a lot, played in the front yard, played outside with the water table....She even took him in the pool once last month.

She is pretty good at varying the activities.

HTH ..DONT feel bad, I think its time for someone new .

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Diana I had a problem with Sophias OT through EI I dint really like her from the start back in May and SOphia does not like her she would cry through the whole session and never crys with her PT, I finally called my coordinator last week and got a new OT this one is so great and Sophia loves her and is learning so much more.....:)

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Its funny because some time I feel like my son isnt getting much out of speech either and he is always crying and running away and I just kissed it up to being that I just got home from work and that he didnt nap. I had no idea some other therapists did all of that. She has been coming with mostly the same stuff since week one with a couple of little things here and there.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

What type of therapy are you getting?

Jordana gets speech and OT. The speech therapist brings games, toys, play do and books. Sometimes they do arts and craftrs, sometimes they play games.

OT she gets at the gym so there are lots of different options there. When she would get OT at home, there were some games she would bring- lots of jumping games and twister type games.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

As both a parent and an EI therapist, get a new one! Seriously, I had 4 speech therapists before I found one that could help my son. I would say give therapists 3-4 months but no longer if you do not see the results you think you should see. My son had a yr of speech with 4 therapists who continually worked on the same two sounds withonly some improvement. He was losing time and I knew it so I kept changing until I found one who is amazing. She taught my son so much in no time at all and bought him from the 6th percentile to the 50th in one yr. She is awesome.

YOu are your child's advocate, do what you have to.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Honestly, Diane, as an EI provider AND supervisor, what she is doing is absolutely inappropriate and unacceptable. Have you spoken to her agency?

Is she taking data? If he has mastered animals and animal sounds, it is time to move on. If she is not taking data then she is a poor therapist - sorry, but that is what she is. No one should run their sessions in an arbitrary fashion. She should have a list of mastered skills, current skills, and the next steps. With mastery criteria - what is she writing in his reports? Read what she is writing in her log notes and call her on anything that looks like she is exaggerating the session...

Any provider is supposed to assess their therapy sessions and see what is needed to move on to the next step. she should constantly be seeing what he is finding reinforcing and then using those items.

I can't do a lot of shopping, but I bring a big bag of stuff and use just a few items out of it each session, and then use different items the next session and rotate that way. As soon as a child shows ANY small indication of being bored, it is time to see what will interest the child - not just interest, but be the equivalent of a circus to the child - stimulating, exciting, getting the child to use words to gain access to it, etc.... I know right away if the child is responding less during my sessions, that it is probably the reinforcer and the items I'm using.

Please address this with her! GL!!!

ETA - Not to toot my own horn, but here goes (toot toot):

I took over a case from a team leader that the mom knew in her gut wasn't right. He was new to EI, and he would cry and cry and cry with her. The team leader told mom its just what kids do in therapy, but she noticed he didn't do it with the other 2 therapists (who are great). As soon as I took over, there was less crying (documented with data, of course ) and this kid's skills have exploded. Some therapists are good matches, and some aren't. And, sorry to say, some are just plain awful.

Message edited 9/11/2009 7:13:18 AM.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Diana I agree with what everyone else has said. It seems like Jack hasn't clicked with her & is probably bored.

Ethan's had therapists since he was 4 months old. We had one, a teacher, that he (and I) didn't like, so I called his service coordinator to switch her with someone recommended by his OT. It was great after that. His therapists bring their own toys & equipment a lot, but also use his toys. They change what they do based on skill level.

Have you asked her why he hasn't moved on to other things since he's mastered what she's doing? I mean I could see moving on to new things and revisiting the old stuff every now & then to make sure he retains the info, but how can you keep a child engaged doing the same stuff they already know time after time??

Maybe call the service coordinator to try a new therapist. Can anyone recommend a good one to you, so you're not going in blind? I'd recommend Ethan's, but she only does severe cases of speech & feeding.

GL! Sending lots of

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I made the call this morning and am now waiting to hear back from his coordintor.

It seems every time I think to do this he has a good day with her and I think I'm overreacting. After reading what your therapists do I know that she is def. not doing enough or challenging him enough at all.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

EI therapists make very good money (anywhere from $70-$90 per session). There is no excuse for what your therapist is doing other than laziness. I say find a new therapist.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

I agree with everyone else. Christopher has been receiving services since he was 18 months, and he will be 3 next week. They always have new toys, but they still have some of the toys he REALLY likes. They also work with his twin brother in the room every now and then, or outside, on the computer. We have also had them come with us to the mall, get haircuts, go to Wood Kingdom, the park so they are NOT just in the same room, being bored.
You dont want him to be frustrated, otherwise he will not like when she come each day.

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in

Re: If your DC receives EI services please come in