Where Do I Find Great Therapists?

As my thoughts begin to migrate towards the end of summer, I’m left wondering, “Where do I find great therapists?” I gave Simmi a break from her therapies because she was no longer receptive to anything they had to give, she was angry, hostile and would just run and hide after a few minutes of them being there. “How much is too much therapy?” I thought to myself. I began to ask other parents who struggled with a similar dilemma, and I found a consensus among them. The resounding theme seemed to be that if a child is no longer receptive to therapy, it isn’t the child who is burnt out, but instead its the therapist who is no longer able to reach the child appropriately.

Simone did very well during the time she had therapy, but as the months had passed, things began to change. After a while, it seemed like she would just tolerate the therapists being there with her until finally she would just run and hide. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe that the therapists she had did the best they could, but I need therapists who will go above and beyond the call of duty so to speak. I need therapists who understand Simmi’s limitations and strengths, not just those who will throw out a suggestion like “I think you need to read the book ‘The Out of Sync Child’” yet they have never read it themselves nor could they tell me what that beautiful book was about. I suppose that if they did actually read it, more progress would have been made in how they structured their therapy time with Simone. For anyone that doesn’t know what The Out of Sync Child is about, basically its a book about children with sensory processing disorder.

There is one therapist that she did completely enjoy, and that was the occupational therapist. This therapist was AWESOME, and knew exactly what to do, what to bring each week and gave wonderful suggestions on how to reach Simmi during the week. She understood Simmi’s sensory problems and found ways to keep Simmi on task and engaged. Then she broke the news that she was cutting down on her work load to take time with her son, I must admit that I was heartbroken. When you find a good great therapist who reaches your child on a level they can finally “feel”, engage, smile, attend and stay on task, you want it to continue. This therapist understood her auditory challenges, and how “chatter” from a therapist or speaking in a loud voice will tune Simone out immediately. Simmi can’t handle a lot of talk from others and the tiniest sound can distract her. She can hear perfectly fine, but the sounds of our voices talking causes her to immediately interrupt our conversation and instead she will chatter on. For Simmi, chattering is her way of trying to gain control of what she doesn’t understand. We can’t have a conversation with Simone. We can’t even ask her something simple like “What color do you like…red or the purple?” That is non-existent. We know what colors she enjoys by what she gravitates towards. If we want to show her something new and try and explain how it works, no can do! Reaching her on a verbal level is increasingly difficult. Our Occupational therapist was replaced and Simmi was never able to warm up to her. So, can we find a therapist that can work with this type of auditory processing problem? How about visual processing? If you can’t show her something because she objects to even looking at the object on a page, another way of reaching her becomes necessary. Shiny things work for her, but it seems as though only a visual specialist likes to bring those objects. Bright color objects don’t always work for her, but shiny things or things that light up always seem to do the trick. If it helps her attend…will they be willing to incorporate that in to their sessions each week?  These are just some of the very simple issues I have with therapists. Not all, but some of them. They understand, bring along shiny things and after a few weeks, the shiny things don’t come anymore. She NEEDS shiny objects to attend right now. I say “right now” because what is important to me is that we get her interested and to stay on task. There will be time later for her to have sessions with non-shiny objects…but for now, what is the harm knowing that she sees and can process shiny things better on a page than just an obscure object in the middle of the page in black and white or color? She hates puzzles and will only allow me to show her things in a book when its very dark in the room, but what would happen if those things were actually shiny? I ask that rhetorically because the answer is “OH MY GOD! Look at that girl enjoying a book!” Another thing that can be unnerving for a therapist is Simmi moving around constantly. Wandering, walking the perimeter of the room, or hiding. She wanders constantly and will take us into a room and then leave us there and leave. Why? She’ll walk back and forth out of any room she is allowed in find something she likes and move it from room to room. There is no rhyme or reason to what she is doing in our minds, but still she needs to move. Constantly. In therapy its the same thing unless you give her something that really holds her attention. Bubbles, balls, the letter “T”, dogs, cats, horses, shiny objects, tools or a construction crane. She also loves music, but will only allow us to sing when she can handle it. Music in a Disney movie she can deal with and even tries to sing along, but she doesn’t always want us to sing or sing along with whatever music is playing.

Physical therapy is also needed. It was brushed aside consistently by her intervention team, even though the vision specialist as well as the team that evaluated her highly recommended physical therapy. She does NOT walk right. And sometimes its difficult for her to walk period. She can reach a point sometimes where she just lays down and I need to pick her up and bring her into bed. She has done this in the stores I’ve taken her to as well. Imagine, everything is going great, she’s wandering the store with us and then finally she sits and won’t get up. It only takes about 25 minutes and she is utterly exhausted and can’t move another step. She would have benefited from physical therapy last year.

And finally Speech therapy is needed. I need to find a speech therapist that is trained in helping children with Apraxia. How does a speech therapist help an Apraxic child with auditory and visual processing problems? The chatter of a therapist talking drives her right up a wall. One of the team members that evaluated Simmi this year suggested to us that we do not follow the normal protocol for speech therapy. His suggestion was that speech therapy take place during physical therapy. Simone needs to be moving constantly and because of this, the more she moves, the more she is in her body and attentive. Are there any physical therapists out there that are also speech therapists trained to help children with Apraxia of Speech, as well as Global and Limb Apraxia? A “One size fits all therapy” will not be helpful for her. Simone hears, sees and speaks much better when she is moving, jumping and running around.

If any therapists in the Los Lunas, NM area feel that they can help, please leave a comment below and I’ll get into contact so we can talk.

The video below is of Simmi and her Occupational Therapist last year playing with the Lite Bright. She knew what Simmi needed and how to keep her on task.

Tags: auditory processing, Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Early Intervention, Global Apraxia, Limb Apraxia, occupational therapy, physical therapy, sensory integration disorder, sensory processing disorder, speech therapy, The Out of Sync Child, visual processing