I was looking at some old documents and found receipts from OT and speech therapists for my kids when they were little (5 and younger). We did some sessions at the behest of their preschool but I never found them helpful, so we stopped. Fast forward five years and my kids are completely fine. Looking back, I feel like I was scammed into sessions the kids never needed in the first place. Anyone else feel like it was wasted money? Certainly, there are kids that need help and would benefit from these services. But I feel like my kids didn't have issues yet we did it because we were guilt-tripped into it.
I never had my DC get OT for poor pencil grip and years later it is still an issue. I thought it would go away.
curious - at what age did you consider this? I feel like my 4yo is not where his peers are on pencil grip / fine motor coordination & "writing" ability -- but he's still so little, hard to know whether to just encourage practice generally or take more concrete steps
@Anonymom DC is 9 now. I can't remember when I first saw it, but certainly by 1st I could tell DC became tired by writing. I have two younger DC and it's clear to me that they have a much much easier time than writing than the older DC had at their age (4).
@Anonymous I did do the OT for pencil grip/hand strength and it still didn't help. I have a 9 year old who was just diagnosed with dysgraphia last year. Maybe if we had kept at it? But we did it for almost a year with no improvement and my child hated the sessions. Sometimes you try and it still doesn't work.
I think things like OT, PT, speech therapy, even CBT are sometimes helpful, often not, and most of the time there's no way to know in advance or even afterward. The problem is that these things are so expensive and usually not covered by insurance. If we lived in a society where everyone got what they needed, this wouldn't be an issue.
It certainly didn't hurt, and may have helped, so it wasn't a waste, imo. You don't get do-overs, so better to know you did all you could if the outcome ins't what you had hoped for.
My oldest is now in middle school but we absolutely were pressured to get speech therapy for my then 4yo because of s-blends in his pronunciation. We spoke to Ped (at Tribeca pediatrics) who thought it was nonsense and then when pressed again by the school we did an assessment with the school recommended therapist because we were then applying for younger DC - asked for oral assessment only and then just deferred. We loved everything else about the school so this was really disappointing at the time. We later learned that our DS was the only boy in the class not in speech or OT - crazy. We ended up moving over the summer so never enrolled #2 (another story, lost deposits for both). Ped was right, FWIW.
This seems familiar to me too -- a preschool class where all the boys are in some kind of therapy (and a good portion of girls too). I'm sure if some journalist wanted to investigate, they would find this to be true at a lot of "top" preschools -- but nobody cares. There is a whole cottage industry around it, and schools think "why not" what's the harm?" and nobody cares that much about the costs of overrecommending for therapy.
My DC had OT for fine motor delays in 2d-4th grades, it was at our initiative and DC absolutely needed it. Knowing what I know now, however, I would have been more careful about which OT we used. Turned out OT was not very good so we spent a ton of money for very little progress, dropped it after 2 years when the diagnostic retest that we asked for showed either no progress or regression and OT said she just didn't know what to make of the results (!). DC is now much older and types everything so it's not a pressing issue, but it would have helped DC a lot in lower grades to be getting effective OT instead of mostly pointless OT.
I often feel the same way, but in reality, I felt like I was doing the best thing for my kids at the time , and they actually enjoyed the sessions. So what was the harm? We actually got insurance to cover much of the cost. If I had a do-over, I think I would actually do it again...
My DC went to a private preschool which really pushed interventions and getting therapy through CPSE. At some point, it seemed like more than half the class got some kind of therapy? I have mixed feelings on this -- on one hand, maybe DC would have had problems without it, and what was the harm? But a lot of it was time -- I know because there was a lag between the eval and finding the right OT/ST/PT and by the time we got there, the OT/ST/PT was like "why are you here?" OTOH, it doesn't seem a good distribution of societal resources. All these kids in private preschool getting these therapies because their school knew how to work the system and was pushing for their kids -- I'm sure it is not the case for other less-privileged kids who did not have such advocates.
It sounds like a lot of responders have kids in private. As a public school parent, it is not easy to get services. As a parent who has a child that greatly benefited from early services, it's rather annoying to see people refer to these services as some sort of scam. To comment on giving services to a 4 year old, the earlier you get services to children who need them, the better. It easier to correct a lot of issues.
Many of these parents were getting private services. As you would expect, a therapist who has a full-pay customer will tend to find an "issue" with any child. This is the main complaint these parents are raising.
@anonymous Exactly. There is no incentive here for any of the experts involved -- the therapists or the preschools -- to dial down recommendation of services. Attitude is "it can only help so what's the harm?" And after the fact, the attitude is "well you don't know what would have happened if you didn't get services, so just be happy your child is fine." This is how you end up with 75% of a preschool class receiving services. Can it be they are all delayed? If everyone is delayed, then maybe where they are at is developmentally normal?
SLP here - I worked in a lot of preschools through CPSE and many times preschool teachers tried to refer students for speech because they had minor behavior issues, so I was approached by many parents. I always recommended they go through their school district to get an evaluation. Most parents were afraid to do so as it would be on their child's "record" which of course was nonsense.