OT Evaluation

Drew's teacher requested permission to evaluate Drew's fine motor skills prior to his IEP meeting this fall. She had some concerns about his development in that area, and wanted to see if he was far enough behind to qualify for services.

At our meeting this week, I received the evaluation. The school used a standardized "Peabody Developmental Motor Scales - 2" test to evaluate Drew's skills. Drew scored in the 75th percentile for grasping skills, and in the 95th percentile for Visual-Motor Integration.

Drew was observed using an overhand/side approach to working with blocks. He could stack 10 blocks to form a tower and was able to copy simple three to four block patterns. He was also noted to grasp a marker with a mature tripod grasp (which shocks me!). He could unbutton three buttons in 75 seconds, and unbutton one button in twenty seconds. He was noted to be able to touch finger to thumbs in a smooth manner. In addition, he can trace a line, cut out a circle and square with accuracy, connect dots with accuracy and was able to imitate a horizontal line, vertical line, circle and a cross.

Basically, all of this is to say that he does not qualify for services for his fine motor skills. He was noted to have several strengths, including his "mature" grasp on a marker, ability to cut out simple shapes with accuracy, ability to button and unbutton and his imitations of drawing lines and simple shapes. The only weakness noted was in his printing skills of his name (it looks quite awful!). So the game plan is for him to work on his fine motor skills in classroom activities with his teachers, and for us to come up with some creative activities at home to help develop these skills.

Mastered

At Drew's IEP meeting this week, we reviewed Drew's progress to date on his current IEP (for the 2009 - 10 school year). He mastered every goal from that IEP! Here's an idea of what he can do:

• Demonstrate improved voice control and improved vowel and consonant productions on at least five out of 10 attempts in the therapy setting.
• Produce a sustained voice in response to a model on eight out of 10 attempts.
• Produce a voice of varied duration in response to a model on seven out of 10 attempts.
• Produce /00/ in syllables and words in response to a model on seven out of 10 attempts.
• Produce final /p/ in syllables and words in response to a model on eight out of 10 attempts.
• Produce /sh/ in syllables and words in response to a model five out of 10 attempts.
• Produce/d/ in syllables and words in response to a model six out of 10 attempts.
• Produce repeated sequences of contrasting consonants, such as /ba-ma/ in response to a model on seven out of 10 attempts.
• Using the school curriculum, imitate and spontaneously use the word "have" instead of "got", and "to" in infinitives. Demonstrate an understanding of the concepts "front", "in front of", "over" and "full/empty" during structured language activities (unit/circle time) and unstructured (recess/lunch) activities through the use of speech reading and oral language in an appropriate fashion during at least six of 10 opportunities.
• In a structured classroom situation using play objects and pictures, demonstrate a receptive understanding of the directional/positional concepts "front", "in front of", and "over" through manipulating objects during structured classroom activities in seven of ten tries.
• In a structured classroom situation using play objects, indicate an understanding of the quantitative concepts "full/empty" by identifying full of empty objects as requested by the teacher in seven of ten trials.
• Spontaneously use the word "to" with verbs to form infinitives: to make, to cut, to color, to write, to play and to go during structured classroom activities 70% of the time.
• During structured classroom situation, imitate a model in a 3-4 word sentence with the possessive "I have ____" instead of "I got ____" during 90% of provided opportunities.
• During structured situations, will spontaneously produce utterances using "I have ___" when made meaningful through theme related play activities with minimal cues 60% of the time.
• Show progress in the sub-skills of phonetic listening and auditory comprehension in sequential order using the Developmental Approach to Successful Listening by responding correctly in 50 of 50 attempts.
• Phonetic Listening - will discriminate between syllables and words initiated with /s/ blends and syllables and words beginning with single consonants.
• Phonetic Listening - In a set of four choices, discriminate syllables or words with initial /s/ consonant blends.
• Auditory Comprehension - will follow directions containing three critical elements in a closed set of four choices.

IEP Meeting Monday

We have our yearly IEP meeting scheduled for Monday. We will review the assessments and evaluations that Drew's teacher has conducted over the opening month of school, and update his goals as necessary. We have no reason to believe that it won't go smoothly, but with these things I guess one never really knows.

One area of interest (or concern) has been Drew's fine motor skills. We consented to an evaluation in early September, and will receive the results of the evaluation on Monday. We're not certain that he will qualify for services, but we do know that Drew is a weak in that area. If he doesn't qualify for service, we're hopeful that his teacher (and the OT) can offer some activities that we can do at home to help Drew develop his fine motor skills.

We'll update his lastest evaluation and IEP goals after our meeting.