OT Evaluation

A few months ago, M's social worker came by to observe his speech therapy session. He was pretty typical during this session with his behavior. Sometimes, he is hard to keep interested in a specific activity; he doesn't like to remain sitting for the entire thirty minutes; and if he is asked, or pushed to do something he doesn't want, he will often break down into a mini-tantrum.

I feel most these behaviors to be pretty consistent with two year olds. He does act out a little more than the twins. He is hard headed and stubborn. And he is very physical - loves to climb, jump, throw etc. Again, fairly typical for a two year old boy. Well, his social worker didn't think so.

She immediately started to throw around words like 'sensory seeking' and intervention. I will be honest, as she was talking she really got my defenses up because she was talking like my kid had a sensory disorder after watching him for thirty minutes. Really, in the end, it pissed me off. She immediately wanted to schedule an evaluation for him. While I really wanted to tell her to shove it, I didn't want to be 'that parent' who is in denial over what could potentially be wrong with her child. I begrudgingly agreed.

The OT evaluation was this week. In the end, the therapist said that she would need to 'score' it to know for sure where M fell and if he qualified for services, but that overall she felt he had typical two year old behavior with some sensory seeking behavior. Do you want to know what his sensory seeking behavior was??

• Playdoh. He liked to play with it. Apparently it is weird for two year olds to want to play with it. My impromptu FB poll would say otherwise.
• Co-sleeping. M still co-sleeps and won't sleep in his own bed.
• Being Cuddly. I told the therapist he was my cuddly baby who liked to be held and snuggled on.
• Lining Up Cars. I told her that he liked to line up his cars and race them. Now I know there can be problems with kids who like to line up objects or otherwise categorize things, but M does this with one thing, and not that often. I told her this, but it was still note-worthy.

Now, while I completely understand that there are children in the world with Sensory Processing Disorders (SPD) I do not believe my child to be one of them. If we have gotten to the point where children who display the above behaviors are labelled as sensory seeking, then it's no wonder to me that diagnosis' such as SPD and autism are going through the roof. It is almost getting to the point that the 'typical' kids are in the minority.

I promise. I am not one of those moms who can't see the issues their child has. I am the one who recognized and fought for services for all three of my children for speech therapy. I asked for S to have an OT evaluation last year for concerns with fine motor. I constantly watch my children and believe completely in early intervention and the utilization of resources available to you. I just have a huge problem with labels and diagnosis being thrown around easily and nonsensically. To me, this gives a huge disservice to those who truly have these problems. If after scoring M, it shows he qualifies for services...god help me.

And for the record...his behaviors are no different than all the other children his age that we play with, and any of the adults that are constants in his life are shocked at the notion that he has anything sensory related.