Your Therapy Source Magazine for Pediatric Therapists October 2016 | Page 4

introduce yourself to the parents of the student. Send a letter home or make a phone call to
provide the parent with your contact information if they should have any questions. Ask the
parents what their concerns are regarding the student’s current therapy services. Make sure that
you have current phone numbers and email addresses for each parent.
STEP 2: EDUCATE AND BE EDUCATED
More and more students with special needs are being included in regular education settings,
resulting in many teachers not being fully aware of the role of school based occupational and
physical therapists. Educate team members about what your role is in the educational setting as
early as possible. You want to avoid situations where three months into the school year a teacher
asks the physical therapist why the student is not working on handwriting. Therapists can try
giving an inservice to the staff members answering the basic questions of school based therapy
such as: What is occupational or physical therapy? What is the difference between school based
and medically based therapy? What type of activities will you be working on? Define for
teachers and parents frequently used therapy terminology. Simplify complex topics such as
sensory integration, neurodevelopmental treatment and muscle tone. Provide handouts describing what skills you are working on and why. Schedule the inservice during school
hours and evening hours as well so that parents can attend.
Parents and school staff offer so much knowledge and insight on a student. Tap into that
knowledge and learn from other team members. Therapists see just a snapshot of a student’s
daily life and they need to see the whole picture. This can be accomplished through observation,
listening and asking questions about a student’s overall daily life.
STEP 3: ESTABLISH HOW TO COMMUNICATE
You will need to determine how you will communicate with all the team members. Establish this
as early in the school year as possible and with a positive attitude. Perhaps a monthly meeting
with a teacher or phone call home would be an effective way to address current goals or
concerns. Maybe sending weekly or monthly progress reports to the teachers and parents may be
a suitable option for some students. E-mail can be a simple way for many parties to communicate
at one time by carbon copying your email to all members of the team. Don’t always offer
criticism or problems. If a student does particularly well on a task during therapy let the teachers
and the parents hear about it. For students with many team members, one option is a daily or
weekly log that allows for quick, simple written documentation from a student’s parents,
teachers, therapists and other staff members. School and Home Communication Forms has
several daily and weekly logs.
STEP 4: PROVIDE CARRY OVER ACTIVITIES AND IDEAS
Therapy is only provided for a limited amount of time for each student. In order for therapy goals
to be met, most therapeutic activities and ideas must be carried out throughout the student’s
entire day. Teachers and parents are the primary instructors in the students life. By providing
teachers and parents with carry over activities this ensures that the student is maximizing his/her
potential. Offer activities that are easy to perform throughout the course of the day rather than
“therapy homework” which adds one more thing for a teacher or parent to supervise. Try
providing parents and teachers with fun, easy, therapeutic games that can be played with the
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