Welcome to Inclusion Matters. produced by the Center for Inclusive Child Cae, aka, CICC. Were located at inclusivechildcare.org
Welcom to Inclusion Matters a podcast with the Center for Inclusive Child Care. I'm Cindy Crawford, Executive Director of the Center and I'm here with my colleague, Priscilla Weigel, our assistant director. Hi Priscilla.
Hi, Cindy, good to be here.
And once again, we are talking with Gina Gibson, who is the occupational therapist, with Fraser, an organization that serves children and families with special needs in Minnesota. And we're so happy to have you, Gina.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
And we've been talking about the field of occupational therapy. And we've also been talking about sensory processing and some other work that occupational therapists do with children and families. And so today, we were thinking that our listeners might really be interested in the process that you would go through with a child if a family came to you, or even how they get to you, if they're thinking that their child might have some sensory needs. And so maybe walk the listeners through what that process for evaluation is like, where to start. And then what happens.
So most people start with going to their primary care provider and their primary care provider can then refer them to a location such as Fraser, to have an occupational therapy evaluation to determine if some services would be appropriate. So then, when families come to us, we explain those three areas that occupational therapists typically look at, which are those fine motor skills, self care skills, and sensory processing. Typically, in my evaluations at Fraser, which tend to be with kids ages seven and under, I look at a standardized test for their fine motor skills. And then parents will complete some questionnaires that asked about self care skills and sensory processing. As parents are completing the questionnaires, I'm doing the standardized testing. So that's really looking at their fine motor skills. But even while they're doing the test, I'm still keeping in the back of my head, a lookout for kind of some of those red flags for some sensory things. So if a child is not really able to sit at the table for very long for as long as we would expect for their age, age range, or if they are having a hard time holding on to a pencil, or using excessive force on a writing utensil, where they're squeezing it so hard, that it's hard to even use it, then those are kind of things that I'm going to look at a little bit further later in the testing, I like to read through the questionnaires that the parents fill out and see which areas jumped out at me as far as if it's some tactile difficulties, auditory difficulties, maybe those movement based things. And then I might do some more in depth observation in those specific areas to kind of see what I'm noticing, in line with what parents have reported.
So how long does that process take typically.
For the evaluation? Typically, our evaluations are between an hour or an hour and a half. Kind of depends on the child's attention span. Usually younger kids, we get done with testing a little sooner, because they're not expected to be able to do quite as much. But then the older kids get, the longer the evaluation process takes because the tests that we implement are just a little bit more inclusive. But usually, within that hour and a half, we're able to wrap up our assessment and be able to let parents know whether or not we're recommending further services for their child.
So within that that same day? Most of the time, yes. Okay, that's great. Yeah. So it really provides good answers and direction for those next steps.
Yeah, and and if it is one of those rare cases where maybe testing took too long, or it seeming like it's kind of a borderline situation where you really want to go through and score every single thing and kind of think it over then we usually give a call back within the next day or two to let families know because we really want to get the ball rolling for getting them into services if that's going to be a beneficial service for them.
Okay, so Gina, if parents are listening or providers who would be talking having a conversation maybe with parents about their child, would yougive a diagnosis of a sensory need?
We give a treatment diagnosis. So because we're a medical service, we do have to treat under a diagnosis. The way that Fraser conducts our services, it is it's kind of a long and wordy term that is basically saying there's kind of a disconnect between what the brain is telling the body to do and then what the body is actually doing. So it's not something where we will specifically give a sensory processing disorder diagnosis. But the diagnosis that we do give allows us to, to treat for those fine motor delays, self care delays and sensory processing difficulties.
So if the parent were to go to, in Minnesota we have the Help Me Grow system , if they were to go to Help Me Grow and were to go through their early intervention at their school district and an occupational therapist through the school district, would use the same processes as you would at Fraser?
So it's pretty similar. Yeah, a lot of times, people get set up with the school district through some of those well child visits as well. You can go to Fraser directly. So if a parent is concerned, and they're interested in an evaluation, they can call Fraser and they'll one of our client services team members will talk them through what types of difficulties are you noticing? What services are you interested in pursuing, and then they can get started with the evaluation process. So you don't have to go through your doctor. Fraser can kind of work on making sure the doctor is looped in on on the plan. So if it's something where you are curious and want to get the ball rolling for an evaluation, you can contact Frasier directly.
That's very helpful. And I think so you've now spent this time with this child and this family and you've determined yep, there, there are services needed, there are supports that are needed. So then what's the next step?
Well typically we recommend our services at a frequency of either once or twice a week, depending on the client's needs. We provide services in what's called an Episode of Care. So we might recommend for either a three month episode of care or a six month episode of care, and then at that time, we'll reevaluate and see if further services are necessary, or if a therapy break might be beneficial at that time. But typically, we will either bring that family to our scheduler that same day and look for openings. And just because their evaluation was completed at lets say our Minneapolis location doesn't mean they have to have services there. If there's a location that has more availability, or is maybe closer to home for these ongoing weekly appointments, then we can get that scheduled still at that same scheduler after the evaluation. If there's not something immediately available, then we put in a referral for services. We encourage families to call back and let us know when they're available. And the more proactive parents are, the quicker they are with getting scheduled. But this episodes of care method of scheduling has really helped decrease our waitlist. So we are seeing families get scheduled really quickly after evaluations.
So are families coming to you for a diagnosis or determination and then taking that elsewhere to other organizations or other private therapy providers?
They can do that as well. Yeah, so if, say they, they maybe traveled a little ways to get their evaluation done at Fraser, and they know of a location for services closer to home, they will get a copy of our evaluation report that they can bring to that location, that clinic closer to home to use for services. They can also show that report to school, especially if they want to say like, hey, look, they've improved from their evaluation five months ago, or this clinician found this difficulty and that's different than what the school found, or comparing like, hey, your results were the same that can be helpful. And that can just show how the child is doing throughout their therapy services.
I have a question, just as we're wrapping up it so people listening may be, you know, in another state and not able to access the wonderful services here at Fraser. So what would you recommend? I don't know if you can, but where could people begin to look for occupational therapy in their areas?
Yeah, I would start with their primary care provider, they would probably be able to refer. If they're already getting school services, their school therapist might be able to point them in the direction of some clinics that they are aware of. You can always google search and that's a good way to kind of check reviews and see if other families have found those services to be beneficial at that specific clinic. There are some online resources if it's a more specific to autism, there are like Autism Speaks and some other organizations that have lists of therapy services. So there's a good amount of help out there.
Great, that's really helpful. Well, thank you again, Gina. This has been very enlightening. Thank you, Priscilla.
