Phillip: Issue about documentation and the right of a parent to know what their child is receiving in OT, a child who can not talk. The only communication we have gotten in her OT notebook is that she has had OT and has done well today. No details. We wrote a note to the OT in the notebook. The city school system was upset that we charted our daughters progress and created graphs to prove our daughter needed speech over the summer using the information in the all the notebooks and soap notes.
We would like some amount of detail other than “she had OT”, they refused to go to mediation last year after we requested it. This year, OT told (teacher confirms this) to give us no details and that we have to wait until reporting periods to receive any info about their sessions.
Over the summer when my wife asked for all our daughters records, and school told her that my daughter “does not need speech over the summer.”
We have advocated for our daughter in this district and have only been treated with lies, misinformation on our rights and rude replies to our worries and concern for our autistic daughter.
Admin is now going out of the way to continue to harass my wife and I, for just asking questions and requesting information. If you could please give me any advise or direction with this issue. We are only emailing admin to document everything. If you could help us in anyway I would greatly appreciate it.
What do you do when a parent is irrate, irrational, unreasonable and accusatory, due to the type of OT evaluation report provided and the contents of the report? Can we say as a clinic, thi sis what w have completed. We are not a good fit. Please look for a second opinion elsewhere and put an end to the interactions. The parent is abusive and accusatory in her feedback and wants to dictate what she wants in the report (she is reporting on an injury occurring out of home).
I am a current OT working with special needs children. I am in a private school setting but if your student is attending your assigned school district I would start with the special education dept head first. To give you an idea, I keep a daily note for each and every session I see my caseload student. From these daily notes we provide progress notes. From these progress notes, we provide our annual IEP goals for the student each year.
It is very difficult for us as practitioners to speak to parents daily, perhaps weekly, on progress as we see many students. I have to stress however, that what notes might have been taken by OT will have nothing to do with trying to be approved for speech; two different entities/separate assessments.
https://ajot.aota.org/article.aspx?articleid=1867123
The state agency that licenses OTs should have a rule that they are to keep session notes. These are covered by the federal FERPA law, that says you are to have access to all records on your child. If the district will not respond to your written request for these “notes”, you can contact the state OT agency & make a complaint about the OT. You can also make a complaint against the school to the state education agency. Your state parent training & information center can assist you. http://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center