Thursday, January 22, 2009

More therapy

Today was occupational therapy (OT) for Dima. Once we get speech going, the tentative plan is to stop OT. While OT is great and helpful, he REALLY needs the speech therapy and at this point we feel it would be too much for him to do both on top of school. But until we get speech set up, he'll continue going to OT.

Mark was able to take Zhenya and run some errands, and since Dima had not had a particularly good day at school I went into OT with him. I'm glad I did, as he definitely needed a few reminders about obeying his therapist. It was also good as I got to see several areas that he has improved and several areas where he still needs a lot of work. I also found out that the handwriting program they're using in OT has him forming his letters differently than at school--no wonder he's been having a hard time in OT! His handwriting has been really good at school and at home, but our OT has said his handwriting is not improving much. I couldn't figure out why until I sat in on the session! :) The school uses the A Beka curriculum and OT uses Handwriting Without Tears, and the way they form their letters are very different for several letters. I'm going to bring a copy of Dima's school manuscript chart to our OT and she's going to start working with him on the same methods they're using at school. Hopefully she'll see the same nice letters we've been seeing!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, I love the confusion that two different methods can cause! At least you caught it, though. That can be so frustrating, for you and him.

tiffers said...

I would never have thought of there being different ways to write letters. Glad you caught that.

Leslie G said...

I love using the HWT program....I know that it can be confusing, having 2 programs.
When we have writing assignments in other books, we use HWT instead.
I'm curious why she is choosing the A Beka over HWT. ???? The HWT was actually developed by an OT.
I'm not criticizing at all...I'm curious!!!??

Courtney said...

The OT is going to use the A Beka since that's what he uses at school. Since he's at school for 7 hours a day, every day, and only at OT for one hour every two weeks, he's getting a lot more reinforcement of the A Beka method. We can't really ask his school to switch curriculum (I could, but I'm already pretty demanding over there ;)), so this is the best option. :)