I am
currently working as a developmental therapist.
I have a 2 year old set of twins on my caseload, who will be turning 3
in two months. At three years old, the children
age out of the program and will transition into preschool. In recent sessions, I voiced my concern about
some specific skills that I do not see the children progressing in, and am very
concerned due to them starting school soon.
One of those skills is transitions.
These two boys have meltdown and fits when I try to transition from one
activity to another. This would
definitely be a problem in preschool in a classroom of 15-20 students. Mom explained that they don’t have tantrums
when the speech therapist is present because she allows the first toy to stay
out while she starts engaging them in the second and then puts away the first
one when they forget about it. Mom said
that our methods are contradicting each other.
What would
you do in this situation?
My solution
to this problem was to first initiate contact with the speech therapist. We talked some through email, and then
scheduled a time when we could meet together for a session to co-treat. We did that today! We sat down and discussed what each of our
goals were from our specialty, and then planned a strategy that we could use to
meet all those goals together. She
admitted that she doesn’t actively think about things like imaginative play,
cooperative play, sharing, turn-taking, and transitions because she is so
focused on what is going on with the mouth.
It was a great way to learn more about each other’s viewpoints and make
a plan to move on from here in the right direction!
Even
though there were only two of us, we used group decision making to create goals
and plans for these two children. This
is something I learned this week when reading an article from the NVC
website.
Hi Kristen,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example of the conflicts that can happen when there is a treatment team. Each person works from their field of reference and often doesn't think about the areas and how they all overlap. It sounds like you and the speech therapist did a great job with collaberating and trying to meet your goals for the children together. It takes lots of team work to successfully work with children and families.
I admire your strength for working with someone who seemed to be rather difficult and not to mention, you all were in a rather difficult situation. It is always hard team teaching or working in a cooperative situation when the two of you are from different disciplines. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI am so impressed that you and the speech therapist sat down to discuss this. This is exactly the type of communication that helps to resolve conflicts. Many times, a persons ego may get in the way and they think their way is the only way. How wonderful, that you both were able to see each others perspective.
ReplyDelete