Update on Us

Avatar for stephsmom98
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Update on Us
2
Mon, 04-03-2006 - 12:09pm

I don't know if I mentioned this before. But two weeks ago we went to an occupational therapist to help Stephanie - age 7 1/2 with SID and ADD problems. She has aspergers as well. The psychiatrist recommended we go. I think it will be good for her as they will help her concentrate better and help her with fine motor skills. I know this is more ADD, but boy, she was into this, then into that and not looking right into the OT's eyes. She just eyed up the toys there and played with one thing one minute, ran to another, then another. She was driving me nuts. But thank God DH was there to see how she is most of the time.

I am glad insurance pays for all this except for co-pay. See will see the psychologist as well for Asperger's problems and anxiety. Since she is homeschooled, this is our IEP in a way and special help. I help her one on one and hopefully they can give me tips on how to help her.

I just had surgery and we took off one week. We went back today and she forgot a lot of stuff. She isn't concentrating very well at all today and I am sure you have that with your children as well. Some days are good and some not so good.

Debbie

Debbie, Mom to my "only" Stephanie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-20-2006
In reply to: stephsmom98
Tue, 04-04-2006 - 10:11am

That's good that the insurance will pay for everything. Ours would not pay for any sort of therapy for autism, aspergers or anything. My son is not in public school yet. I'm hoping he'll do well but I know he has problems with concentration so I don't know how it is going to go. I will homeschool if need be but I want to see how he does in public school first. What's nice now is that so many college courses can be taken online now so that will be great when our kids reach that point. I am taking an online course right now and it's so much better than having to sit in a class, bored and listening to the teacher talk. That was always hard for me.

Best of luck to you with everything. Sounds like you are really trying to do your best for your child.

Shelly

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: stephsmom98
Tue, 04-04-2006 - 10:55am

Hope you are feeling better after your surgery! Get well wishes your way.

It sounds like a good plan, OT for sensory and a psychologist for social skills. Is the psychologist specialized in ASD's? What is s/he working on with Stephanie?

I ask because kids with ASD's tend to process and understand much differently than kids with other types of psychological type difficulties. I have found typical talk therapy to not work well. Our psychologist is specialized and uses some fantastic approaches to teach the skills they need. Cait and Mike have both seen typical clinical psychologists through the school district and insurance and we have had some useless experiences. Once Cait was in a social skills group with this really nice psychologist. Problem was he didn't "get" AS. So one week she came out and the lesson she learned was that she should blame all her troubles on her brother. For a week everything she did wrong she blamed on Mike because she was supposed to. That wasn't supposed to be what they took out of that class but being concrete that is what she learned. Other than that I can't say she learned much of anything from that group.

Our current one will use social stories, comic strip conversatons, story maps, visuals, and other such methods to teach the kids. She used to put this tree type thing on a white board and it showed Cait the steps in having a conversation and they would practice conversations. She would do social stories on wearing deordorant or the importance of hygiene. Stuff a regular "talk therapist" doesn't do. Those are just some examples.

I am glad you are getting some help for her. I am a big believer in SI therapy so hopefully that helps too.

Renee

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