May
7
Written by:
Greta Bullock
5/7/2010 5:24 AM
Recently, a new speech pathologist joined our school district. When we met, she was very excited because she explained that she loves to do co-treatments with PT. She wanted to know if we had any shared students that might be appropriate candidates for co-treatments. As it turned out, none of our shared students ended up being appropriate for collaborative sessions, but her comment inspired me.
I know that physical activity can generate a lot of language production, but to be honest, I myself don’t utilize co-treatments or collaborative sessions very frequently. Because I don’t have a lot of experience with co-treatments in the school setting, I wanted to explore different ways we can co-treat and the pros and cons of co-treatment. I also want to know if you, as readers, have any suggestions or ideas about co-treatment.
One of the first issues that come to my mind when I think of collaboration between OT, PT, and SLP is feeding. This is an area where I have utilized co-treatments in the past. The PT works to facilitate a good upright sitting posture and head/neck position while the OT works on use of the utensil and the SLP works on swallowing. Another instance of co-treatment I can think of is a PT stretching a student’s lower extremities as they work on a tabletop activity with an OT.
When have you used co-treatments in the past?
When, I consider the benefits of co-treatment, I think of several things. The student may not fatigue as easily from one collaborative session as they might from two consecutive individual therapy sessions. This is important for students who are easily-fatigued due to their age or diagnosis. Another important benefit of co-treatment is its efficiency. A student may spend less time away from academics because therapy is grouped. The most important benefit of co-treatment, in my thinking, is that as therapists we can learn from each other. We can learn new treatment techniques to build into our program, and we can learn techniques specific to the student we’re working with. Sometimes the best ideas for motivating a kiddo to participate in PT-related activities come from the SLP or OT. By teaming up, we make our therapy for a student much more effective!
I can think of a few reasons to avoid co-treatments. They must be used ethically. Some therapists may want to use co-treatments as a way of escaping an individual session with a student. This is an inappropriate use of a collaborative session. Having more than one therapist with a student at a time may also lead to unnecessary distraction or anxiety for the student. It is important to consider what the goal of co-treatment is before attempting it. It is also important to plan your collaborative session ahead of time. You don’t want to waste the student’s time with a poorly planned session.
What do you think about co-treating? Do you use it in your school-based therapy practice?
2 comment(s) so far...
Re: Co-Treating and Collaboration
I co-treated with PTs and OTs many years ago when I worked in a school for students with mutiple disabilities. . It was beneficial for the students because as the PT or OT worked on positioning, stabilization, and facilitation of graded movement, I was able to take advantage of this to work on speech production, when appropriate, and certainly language development including use of AAC. I learned a lot from the PTs and OTs, and hopefully they learned about speech and language and how to promote speech and language skills in their treatment sessions.
By Rosalie Nabors on
5/10/2010 4:36 AM
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Re: Co-Treating and Collaboration
Rosalie, it is really great about your experience with co-treating. As I read your comment, it reminded me that positioning has to do a lot with breath support, so that could be a very important piece of speech production!
By Greta Bullock on
5/11/2010 5:01 AM
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