Early diagnosis - what do I do?

If I had one wish as a therapist and practice owner, it would be that parents with newly diagnosed children knew where to go first. When we are concerned about our children, we typically go to the pediatrician first. If the Dr is well informed, he or she may refer the child to some type of child specialist such as a Developmental pediatrician or a psychologist or even neurologist depending on the issue. As parents, we come home and read everything and anything we can on the Internet about the behaviours we are seeing in our child and then talk to those people we trust or know, searching for opinions and insight into whether there is a problem or what the problem may be.

Once at the specialist, we expectantly sit down waiting to hear some type of revelation about why we are seeing these issues in this little being that we created. Voila! Your child is ...... regardless of what we are told, many times we hear or don't hear up to 60% of what the specialist has said. We may hear the "Autism, ADHD, Learning Disabled, Asbergers Syndrome .."By the time we get home we have only retained 15% of that 60%. Hence a mumble jumble of words float around our brains and merge into some type of garbled output when trying to talk to all of those beloved people whose opinions we asked for initially. Many times the "diagnosis" is such a shock that the emotional side of the brain goes into fight/flight/fright - a natural, normal, healthy place to be. The hard part of this is that we still have to function "normally", but don't have any strategies to work with. The specialist usually provides a list of services and places to go and a couple of recommendations that may or may not make sense. Another issue that we deal with is having to move "quickly" through the system of health care and services related to a specific diagnosis. Except that my child is not a diagnosis. He is a living, breathing, acting out little being who shows some quirky stuff that doesn't look quite right or like his peers.
What the specialist does not usually talk about is how to cope with all of this. Receiving a diagnosis of any kind is tough. We go through a range of emotions and thoughts : "what did I do to make my child like this?", "is this my fault or my spouse's fault" " oh, he will just grow out of this!". Denial, guilt, fear and hurt are only a few of the emotions that rally through our heads in a tornado type fashion... but where to go from here?

With so many programs available today, how do you know which one is right for your child? I hope through this blog, that I can talk about the many areas to look at and consider when building your child's team. You are their advocate, their team leader and the head of their campaign.
Therapists are definitely under rated! What I mean by that is when there is a strong team of occupational, speech and physical therapists involved in your campaign, that is where you will see the most bank for your buck.
Let's take a little step back. There are really only 3 areas red flagging us that something may be "out of sync". Motor delays, speech difficulties or social/behavioural difficulties. Those are the indicators that something is different. Well, child development is a layered process. One layer is dependent on all the others to develop fully.

Motor skills are learned. They occur in a hierarchical fashion starting with reflexes like we see in tiny infants and move up the developmental ladder of "milestones". Speech development is dependant on how well motor skills have developed resulting in sequencing sounds, then words, sentences and conversations. Social, behavioural and emotional development are intricate layers that rely on both motor and language development. My point here is that by the time parents notice red flags, there are layers of areas that could be addressed to improve those issues we are seeing and they all have to be addressed at some point. These areas function as a whole, not independently.

The latest research shows that cognitive development is dependant on social and emotional IQ and taking that a step further by incorporating play through motor and language skills is critical in developing these higher level skills.

So we come back to the original question: where do I start. Start with your therapists that use a holistic, combined approach at looking at the brain and body after looking at your child and their needs. This will provide the necessary opportunities to help you the parent and your child develop and work through the areas needed to develop a well rounded child. This of course builds our confidence in our parenting skills and allows us to be parents!

The therapist is the single best person who will be strong force in facilitating weekly changes. These changes are generally slow and small resulting in a combination of improvements. Another critical reason why you have to be a strong part of the your child's team. Step-by-step functional changes are made that affect daily living skills, communication, social development and learning skills relating to cognitive development.

Medications are quick fixes and sometimes they are very effective, however neurological development is dependant on strengthening brain function which is the super computer of a person. Without a duel-core processor, the right and left sides of the brain can't function well together. A therapy team will work on getting those skills to function well. That is key to making life long changes.

Feel free to call us or email with any questions regarding this topic. We are happy to help you through this journey!

Shelley

New Speech-Language Pathologist

Hello CTW Families! Over the last 3.5 weeks, I have had the chance to meet many of the parents and children of Children's Therapy Works. For those of you who I haven't yet met, I look forward to meeting you! I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about me. :) My name is Alyssa Siegel and I am the newest addition to the CTW Speech-Language Pathology team. I just moved to Atlanta about a month ago and I'm really looking forward to working with you and your family!

I was raised about 5 hours south of here in Jacksonville, FL. After high school, I moved to Gainesville, FL where I attended the University of Florida for my Bachelors degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders and minor in Education. I've gotten a lot of slack about being a Gator here in Bulldog Country, but I'm a Gator Girl and proud of it! I bleed Orange and Blue. :)

After graduation from UF, I moved up to New York City to earn my Masters in Speech-Language Pathology from New York University. I completed my field work experiences in a Huntington's Disease unit, in an early intervention center, and in an outpatient rehabilitation facility. Since my graduation from NYU, I worked in Brooklyn for the NYC Dept of Education primarily with children with Asperger's Disorder, High Functioning Autism, Social-Relational Disorders, Auditory Processing Disorders, and Expressive/Receptive Language Disorders.

When I'm not working, I can usually be found hanging out with friends, lounging on the couch with my husband Matthew and our TiVo, or exploring my new city of Atlanta. I absolutely LOVED living in New York and taking in everything the city had to offer... especially Broadway shows, Yankee games, comedy clubs, and the SHOPPING! I'm definitely looking forward to finding my niche here in Atlanta.

I'm excited to start my next chapter here at CTW with you and your children. Thank you so much for the warm welcome and I'm looking forward to help "light the way to better futures!"

Alyssa Siegel, MA, CCC-SLP

Early intervention - Baby steps

Yesterday, I had a long conversation with a long term client who has become a friend too. We discussed how quickly time is passing and looked back at the beginning of our relationship together. I was the OT, she was the mom and we had a common goal: to get "Johnny" (names changed for privacy reasons) to reach his highest potential. The doctors said that he probably wouldn't walk or talk.

"Johnny" is now somewhere around 9-10 years old. His parents have dedicated their lives to finding the best programs for him both in the home, at school and as adjunct therapies. They have found the funding through hard times and changed programs in the best interest of this child.
The result: A walking, reading, learning, little boy who has made more gains then any one thought possible! If this isn't a miracle, then I don't know what is.

This mom made some very interesting points:
1. We took responsibility for our child
2. Even when we did not have the money, we knew that be investing in him early on would pay dividends in the long run - they are!
3. Education about what is available - not the moaning and groaning, but what is effective and where do we find it?


I really appreciated this conversation! As a part of this team, I feel like we ALL made a difference in this families life. It truly is a team effort and it takes time.

Mom said : this has been a long process with many baby steps, but look at we are today!

Thank you Mom for motivating us to do more, for reinforcing the fact that we are doing the right thing and it does take time, effort and perseverance.

Meeting all our needs

As we head into the 2008-2009 school year, there is always a certain amount of apprehension and excitement as a parent. Who is my child going to get as a teacher this year? Will they get the best out of my child? Will my child finally be able to read or make friends?
There are so many questions that pop into my head as a parent, that I sometimes wonder how I actually let them go to school, never mind cope!

I think that many times this happens with everything we do with our kids. There is so much out there that can affect what they do, who they meet how they use their experiences to the best of their ability and what they choose to participate in. Remember as Moms, we are human and we are allowed to feel overwhelmed, tired and question whether we have made the right decision or not. If we haven't, our children will soon let us know that we need to change something.

In the therapy world, we are so challenged, as therapists and parents. How do we make the right choices regarding therapy, education, home programming etc. As a therapist, we have so many options available to us that is can become very challenging knowing whether we are meeting the child's needs AND the parent's needs. Often these are different. It becomes a very delicate balance knowing how ensuring that we are meeting all these needs. Pediatric therapists at Children's Therapy Works consider so many variables to meet the needs of our clients, our little people, insurance companies, medical doctors and schools. We hold internal conferences and challenge each other to think out of the box and get a different perspective and we ALWAYS consider the very delicate nature of parenting so that we can treat to the best of our abilities and honor our parents in the situation that they are in!

As school approaches, we shift our gears to the academic year. We are looking at some cool new computer based therapy programs, groups and other opportunities that enhance the lives of our families.

Have a great day
Shelley Margow
CEO

Welcome to the CTW blog

With the constant changes in technology and the fast pace at which we are moving in todays world, I decided it was time for Children's Therapy Works to have a blog.
This is such a great way to connect with our clients, share information and just have a social network that we can access when feeling lonely, confused or thrilled about changes that our children make.

Children's Therapy Works is 10 years old this year! Wow, as I look back over the years, we have really grown, and our kids have grown with us. I get quite emotional speaking to "old" clients who are now teenagers and seeing how far they have come. It's times like these that I am grateful to those parents and therapists who forged through the good times and the bad - the pay off was worth it!

If you have any ideas or suggestions of what you would like to see in this blog, feel free to add your thoughts and ideas.


Have a wonderful Tuesday.