We had a very successful statement review today and learned that for the next 6 months (until next statement review) the boys will both receive full time 1:1 support. We had a report from a tourettes specialist and Occupational Therapy all of which made some very useful recommendations for school.
New school are requesting notepads to help with the boys writing in literacy lessons and OT are recommending 3 x 15 minute sessions daily to help combat the sensitivities they have. They also have lax ligaments in their fingers which makes it difficult to write and causes pain when writing longer tasks. There will be exercises recommended to help with this.
I would urge anyone with a child who has tourettes and any associated sensitivities to pursue OT. I would also urge you to look at your child to see if there are any ASD 'traits' as we feel the tourettes has masked this over time. We have all put the 'quirkiness' down to the tourettes whilst all along there could have been learning strategies used in teaching children with ASD which would have helped reduce anxiety and therefore in turn reduce the tics. The tics for my two seem to be driven by fear, anxiety, difficulty processing information, sensitivities. If you can tackle some of these then hopefully in turn the tics could reduce.
It is early days for us but I will update the post with how we get on.
We are taking a trip to Torquay this weekend to get the mouthsplints checked out. I am hoping we can do something for Joe as his tics seem to be on the increase at the moment. I think this is all linked with the change of school and the anxiety it is provoking.
Ben is using his a little and feels it helps - only time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment