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Adventist Midwest Health has Paulson Rehab with great OT's.
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From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate everyone's responses and advice, and your very generous offers to help dealing with the school :). However, as a therapist myself (speech) with experience with the way school districts work, I am not interested in pursuing that route. Indeed, I included the line of "school won't help" because I knew that many well-intentioned people would suggest requesting services from the school. Again, any recommendations will be greatly appreciated! Have a wonderful weekend!
Hello,
I have a 6-year-old boy whom I suspect has sensory integration dysfunction. He has a bit of low tone (he always wants to be laying on his desk while writing or laying on the floor or couch instead of sitting up), is extra clumsy, always knocking down or spilling something (appears to need additional stimulus in order for his proprioceptive system to "wake up"--and I am the same way!) and is constantly, constantly, constantly moving around. His self-help skills are not that great either. My husband and I used to think all of this was a maturity issue, but every day I see more and more a bigger gap between his academic/behavior/social skills and his physical skills. I would like to have him evaluated and treated privately (his school won't help because he doing well academically). I appreciate very much your recommendations.
Thank you,
G.
Adventist Midwest Health has Paulson Rehab with great OT's.
1) Try getting a recommendation from either the local hospital or your peds. office.
2) Still try the school. Call the Special Ed. dept. and ask if any of the OTs have outside agencies that they can refer you to.
YOU are your son's biggest advocate!!! Keep bugging the school to have him tested! If its a public school, you have every right to have him tested - keep asking, then demand. If your son goes to a private school, there's a form or a certain way to get your local school district to get him tested. If the public school system still won't test him, get a district advocate. THat's someone who knows the system and will go in and fight for you. YOU are your son's biggest fan and advocate!!! Trust your mother's instinct!!!!!! Good luck!
Dear G.,
I am not suprised you are notgetting any help from your school. I have had to fight with my children's school district to get what they needed. I am a foster & adopted parent. We have two children who has to have OT, PT, & spech theray. We had to go the route of getting them private treatment and guess what? It's all at the school expense,(Key) start with your personal child's physician first, The ask him or her for recommendations to other specialists they know and have your doctor to give a referral to them. Call them and when they tell you what the cost is, you tell them this is going to be billed to your child's school district. Get the name of your school district special Ed director & Superintendent. Contact the both by phone & in writing. Tell them you have called and made an appointment for your child at your doctors recommendations and you know that they have a responsibility to pay for the testing. i would be more than happy to help you & assist in getting you through the process. It worked for me witout an attorney or mediation from State board of Education. They were of little or no help. I am an advocate/consultant to & for parents of children with special needs. I am also a licensed chilcare provider for 25 years,and a licensed foster parent for 10 years working with children with mild to severe special needs. I would love the challenge. You can e-mail me at ____@____.com and I can assist you more 1-on-1. C. Scott-South Suburbs, IL
Hi G.,
Check out this response I wrote the other day when someone was looking for an OT in Oak Park: http://mamasource.com/request/4912224882579734529
I have a more complete list for the western suburbs but don't have it handy (family here for the holidays). But if you want to email me with more information about your location I can see if something on the list is closer to you than the oak park locations I posted about before.
I totally get why you want him privately evaluated - schools do have OTs on staff and schools are good at evaluating certain things, but I don't think they officially take much notice of sensory integration. Plus, the tests we had to confirm it were pretty inexpensive - about $250 a few years ago. Sometimes you want to have a good idea of what services you know you are going to want before you go into the IEP process.
(although as an aside, a child doesn't need to be failing academically to get an IEP - my son is doing well academically and we've just started the IEP process ourselves. But not until we had a pretty good idea of his needs and capabilities first.)
