[blindkid] Sensory OT

[Dr. S. Merchant]

Heather,  I haven't been following this thread closely, but many a times to
speed things up, I went down to the administrator's office (Director of
Special Ed or whatever the title was) to get forms etc.. or to get things
done more quickly.  I always did it nice, apologized for taking up their
time and thanked them for the role that they played or will play in my
child's education, but nonetheless, was firm on getting forms, getting
things started.  By the time my son graduated high school, I knew every
special ed director, was welcome to stop by, knew of or knew personally most
of the special ed other administrators, teachers, even though some were not
directly involved in my son's education.  It is soooo incredibly helpful to
have met and talked to everyone from the ground up.  So, you are just
starting your journey and my advice is to make yourself known in as nice a
manner as possible.  Having heard some horror stories , I know that nice is
not possible in all instances, but making a concerted effort at the
beginning to be absolutely as nice and thankful as possible, and picking
your battles - (who cares if it comes 1month later than promised... it came)
will make it go so much more smoothly.  

I was always willing to wait, because I usually asked for whatever was
needed (technology as an example), 1 year ahead of time, so if it took
awhile to procure and that time was less than one year, I was ahead of the
game. 

Don't know if this helps, just what helped me for my son's pre K (3 years
old) - 12th grade education

Sandy Taboada

-----Original Message-----
From: blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Heather Breems
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 8:26 AM
To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Sensory OT

Thank you Trudy,

I have heard from our state chapter president as well with some helpful
hints.  We are seeing a vision teacher at our local school for the Blind.
 Unfortunately they no longer have any OT's on staff and she was not sure
who to refer us to at this point, but was also going to look into it for us.
 Since my son turns 3 soon, we will have to go through our insurance for
private OT services.  Thankfully though our insurance covers 15 sessions per
year.

Unfortunately the school has not even evaluated him yet.  He has an IFSP (or
should soon as early intervention evaluated him on July 26th), but the
school appears to be stalling on sending me the consent form to have him
evaluated by their team.  I know by law once I sign the consent they must
evaluate him within 60 days so my fear is they are trying to keep me from
signing in order to delay and catch up from all the summer cases.  Even once
he is evaluated I do not have a lot of faith that he will get the proper OT
services he needs through the schools.  That is where we are at this point.

Sincerely,
Heather

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Trudy Pickrel <tlpickrel at hotmail.com>wrote:

> Heather
>
> Start with your local school for the Blind. Many of them do evaluations
for
> both early intervention and school districts. Some insurance pays for
> private OT if referred by Physian. Your state chapter president also
should
> be able to point you toward evaluators. Early intervention and mths before
> he turns 3 they should evaluate and have his IEP so it starts the week of
> services. I know if you put in writing asking for IEP they have 30 days.
> Maybe someone on here knows if that applies to requesting a 1st IEP and
> evaluation.
>
> Trudy L Pickrel
> President MDPOBC
>           &
> TLC by the Lake
> Standard Poodles
> www.tlcbythelake.weebly.com
>
>
> On Sep 22, 2011, at 1:00 PM, blindkid-request at nfbnet.org wrote:
>
> > org
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more
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-- 
Heather Breems
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