To all parents (or constituents) who are availing of therapy services -- OT, PT, and SP -- here are 8 myths about therapy that I, as an advocate, would want to clarify: Warning: Therapeutic Use of Self - Matter of Fact 1. Therapy is a fever drug. You dont just go to therapy feeling relieved that your child will get cured after attending x number of sessions. Therapy is a long-term commitment of collaboration, patience, and unconditional love for your child. 2. In therapy, my child can be seen by a play expert. In therapy, you see us play, talk, and walk with your child. Looks like an expensive way of playing. We carefully use therapeutic play and activities to address pre-requisite skills in order to prepare your child for lifes future demands. 3. Therapy is tutorial. We help your child learn or re-learn skills but we dont directly augment their academic skills. Kindly stop letting us help them do their math or science homeworks. School teachers are the best people to tap in this case. 4. Therapy is a daycare center. The mentality of leaving your child in the therapy center so that you can do some errands is not a good idea. You go to therapy with your child because you want to know whats happening and what you can do with your son or daughter when you get home. 5. Therapy is expensive. A lot of people think therapy is only for the well to do or rich people of this 3rd world nation. 500 to 700 per hour? Yes its expensive if you see it per hour. How about dividing that amount to 7 days because you are expected to do continuing therapy at home with your child every dat after consult? That makes therapy P 700 / 7 days = 100 pesos per day. 6. Therapy will make my child behaved -- thats it. Yes we use the perspectives of Skinner, Pavlov, Thorndike, and Vygotsky (to name a few of the well-renowned behaviorists) to help children learn skills. But thats just the beginning. OTs, PTs, and SPs are not ABAs or applied behavioral analysts (therapists). We work with them at certain points of the therapy process but we do completely different things. Essentially, your OT/PT/SP must assist you and your family in your childs future life endeavors (mobility, community engagement, and functional communication). 7. OT is behavioral, SP is talking, and PT is walking. OT, PT, and SP are allied professions which means we (should) work closely together. Its not as easy as PT muna, tapos OT, tapos SP. Yes that flow can be true -- to very specific cases. Like I said in number 1, therapy is not a drug. Its not a very good idea to box our therapies to just that. Please always talk with your therapists to discuss your goals for your child. 8. Therapy can be done by anyone. OT, PT, and SLP are university degrees completed in 4 or 5 years with clinical internship and research output. Not to mention the licensure exam that we all need to pass in order to practice. So if there is a non-licensed therapist offering you services at a buy-one-take-one rate or presyong-tinaga, please have second or even third thoughts because you dont want to be left unprotected when the unexpected comes (malpractice or negligence). Hope this information help you see us, therapists, more than a set of human resource, but allies to your childs future. Thank you. :)
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 01:35:18 +0000
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