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mayappleridge
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Joined: Aug 26 2007
Location: Wales
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Posts: 53
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| Posted: May 06 2009 at 2:37am | IP Logged
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My seven year old son is on the autism spectrum. He has very mild symptoms that mostly just affect his learning (and a tiny bit social skills). He's been diagnosed in the US with PDD-NOS. We suspect, but have no formal diagnosis (we being his US speech therapist and myself) that he has an auditory processing disorder. He has some sensory issues, they are mild. He has a lot of issues around memory and hearing the sounds in a word and a few very minor articulation problems. In the US, he recieved speech and occupational therapy for 45 minutes each once a week.
Now we are in the UK. There is a lot of talk about home education here becoming more regulated and a lot of people I've run across have opted out of searching for special ed resources because of this. As it stands now, we are going back to the US in 2 years. We are considering staying here though.
I have a home program that his therapists in the US gave me. I feel like I can do his OT for the most part (though a yearly meeting with an OT would be helpful) on my own. The speech is where I'm worried. The articulation problems aren't really an issue for us as I am working on them with him and as they are very mild I'm pretty confident he'll grow out of them. What concerns me is making sure he gains all the pre reading/ phonemic awareness skills he needs. For example, he never learned to rhyme on his own. His speech therapist and myself (and our family)taught him to rhyme. I had no idea that it was a prereading skill and that his not knowing how to rhyme was a developmental issue. Now we are seeing a lot of memory problems, a lot of distration. If you ask him to say, get some plates for the table, he will likely either forget what you asked and have to come back and ask again, or forget and just wander off. I'm pretty sure this is not a behaviour issue for him as he seems a little embarrassed by it.
So what has been suggested for me to do is to call the therapists personally (we are on a waiting list now), and ask for a one off appointment for an evaluation. Basically pester them into it.
What I wonder is, what harm am I doing by not having him in therapy. I know that in the US, he was really helped by therapy, but we also did a lot of work with him at home. (We still do.)
I'm also looking for resources. I have a great book of phonemic awareness activities that should keep us busy for the rest of this school year and summer. Sensory activities are easy to find and come up with as is heavy work.
A mama's life can be so full of worry!
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www.cyfaill.blogspot.com
Quaker, Mama to 4, former American ex-pat
the Artist (boy) age 10
the Explorer (boy) age 8
the Tiny Goddess (girl) age 3
and Miss Mousie (girl) age 2
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Willa
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Joined: Jan 28 2005
Location: California
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| Posted: May 06 2009 at 9:03pm | IP Logged
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Just so you know, I tend to be a bit on the relaxed side of the fence when it comes to therapy. Except in very limited specifics, I just haven't seen big benefits for my son when he is in a therapy program versus when he is not.
That being said, my son who sort of overlaps with PDD-NOS except that he HAS a diagnosis of dev delay due to infant stroke, took a year off of speech therapy last year. He was nine. The school stopped covering speech for homeschoolers. I felt OK about carrying on what we had been doing.
This year I'm going to look into private speech therapy for him -- the downside for that is that there is nothing closer than 60 miles away  But I want to make sure he gets some oversight. However, my sense is that if you aren't noticing real backsliding and he continues to progress you are not hurting him too much by a temporary lapse in therapy.
I wonder if with his distractibility you could sort of guide him through listening and carrying through, then fade your guidance as he gets more in the habit. Eye contact and telling my child to repeat my instructions has helped with us.
I hope you have some success with your pestering!
I would love to start a resource list of speech resources -- I have a short list of home therapy resources I found online
Linguisystems is a good place to look for published speech language resources here. Not cheap, though.
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AMDG
Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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mom3aut1not
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| Posted: May 06 2009 at 10:34pm | IP Logged
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I have to respectfully disagree, Willa -- at least with *my* son and therapy. Mayappleridge, my son is flat out autistic. I have two other, much older kids on the spectrum as well. (One is pddnos and the other is hfa.)
The therapy my son gets privately has been a Godsend. (Most of the school therapists he's had and that his sisters had weren't very helpful.) When he started therapy with her, they couldn't even get a basal at the 0-3 month level in receptive language! In fact, his first therapist sort of taught him what words *are*.
Because of insurance issues, we got dropped from the private therapy schedule for about two years. He made some progress in that time, but I also noticed a big difference in how much progress he made in a single year after we returned to his private therapy. DId I say big? I meant enormous.
Otoh, I could have worked with his older sisters without as much assistance. Is there any way to work with a therapist on a reduced schedule -- once every one or two months?
Linguisystems has some good stuff. So does Superduper, Inc. There are also some things available from amazon.com that I use. (It is so much easier to get stuff now -- when I worked with his older sisters, everything seemed to cost hundreds of dollars as the programs were all meant for classrooms and had several components.)
I also love All About Spelling. Joseph loves it too. We already knew many of the phonograms, but I can't see him doing as well with a standard spelling program. He is really learning to spell and read despite his severe language delays. It's great!
In Christ,
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Deborah
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Amanda
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| Posted: May 18 2009 at 9:38pm | IP Logged
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Mayappleridge, you bring up a question that I think about every day! (In my case, though, it's "Do we continue to choke down the public cyber school curriculum in order to receive ST & OT, or do we go back to homeschooling without therapies?")
First, please don't worry--at least, don't fall into the trap of feeling as if every minute your ds spends without therapy you are doing him irreparable harm! :-)
My ds (almost 12, with Asperger's) has received speech for--wow, nine years now. The quality of the therapist makes all the difference in whether it is worth it or not. His first several years were spent with school STs and a private ST who didn't quite understand what his issues were. I suppose I am mentioning this just to reassure you that you are doing a better job than many STs would! FWIW...
I think your idea of getting an evaluation is an excellent one. If you like the ST, perhaps you could see him/her once every six months or so, or whatever you can manage.(I lived in the UK for three years, but I don't know how therapies work there--e.g. do you need a referral from your GP? etc.) Then you will have a better idea of how to best help him at home. If you have a clearer idea of why he's having the issues you're seeing, then we can help you more with resources, too.
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4Real Forums : Special Blessings
Topic: thinking of giving up on therapy...
