[blindkid] Help with PT and OT Meeting

[Sarah Dallis]

Thank you Deborah! This was in my email to them in December :)

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 10:45 PM, Deborah Kent Stein <dkent5817 at att.net>wrote:

>
>
> Dear Sarah,
>
> It sounds like Ellie might benefit greatly from the work of Dr. Lilli
> Nielsen, the Danish educator who developed the Active Learning approach for
> work with young blind children.  The idea is to place the child in an
> environment that encourages curiosity and exploration.  She has published a
> number of books and articles, and designed several pieces of equipment.
>  The
> best-known is a self-contained environment called the Little Room.  You can
> learn more about Dr. Nielsen's work at www.lilliworks.org.  I hope this
> helps!
>
> Debbie
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sarah Dallis" <sarah.dallis at gmail.com>
> To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 9:26 PM
> Subject: [blindkid] Help with PT and OT Meeting
>
>
>  Many of you might not remember me, my daughter Ellie, is 18 months old and
>> has been blind since birth. She doesn't walk, crawl, or stand, but she did
>> recently learn how to sit up on her own. She has also started laying down
>> more, I think she's tired of sitting on her butt all the time so she'll
>> lay
>> down and roll back and forth (carefully not to travel too far). She
>> doesn't
>> eat either, she gets pediasure and we have been working with speech for
>> feeding.
>>
>> I have a meeting on Tuesday with her PT and OT, neither are experienced
>> with blind infants. I have called the meeting to address some concerns I
>> have. A few specific concerns are the fact that I can't hold her hand
>> anymore because of their hand over hand "therapy" methods from before
>> December (they have since stopped hand over hand). Also, she no longer
>> stands, my husband and I were able to get her to stand for 60-120 seconds
>> if she was leaning on us or something. Once we showed her PT and they
>> started working on it, she will go up to stand but promptly plop right
>> back
>> down on her tush. I sent them an email in December with new therapy
>> methods, ideas, and resources for them to go to and they have never
>> discussed their findings or thoughts with me on the email, just pushed it
>> to the side. And finally, they do not have any suggestions for adaptive
>> equipment. I'm not sure if this is common but she keeps her head down the
>> majority of time, because that's where her toys are and where she usually
>> plays.
>>
>> Based on this and the experiences you all have, does anyone have any
>> suggestions/ideas I can take with me into this meeting. Maybe it won't be
>> any help, but maybe it will. I also have my insurance getting us a second
>> opinion referral to a new therapy place because I'm so frustrated with
>> this
>> one. I'm ready to completely fire the PT even if I'm not impressed with
>> the
>> new place
>>
>> And some additional info is that my husband and I are both active duty
>> military (I'm desperately trying to separate to be home to help Ellie
>> more), and Ellie's therapists are in the same facility as her daycare (I
>> don't care for the daycare either). Due to the mission we're not always
>> able to make it to her therapy appointments and we have allowed them to
>> work with her while we're not there. They no longer have this permission,
>> except feeding. I just don't feel like I can trust them to not do hand
>> over
>> hand or something that they already know is an issue based on the email in
>> December.
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Sarah Dallis
>>
>> Mom to Ellie: http://elliesgrace.blogspot.**com<http://elliesgrace.blogspot.com>
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>>
>
>
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>



-- 

Sarah Dallis

Pampered Chef Consultant

Order 24/7 Online: http://www.pamperedchef.biz/sarahdallis

Mom to Ellie: http://elliesgrace.blogspot.com