What Is the Difference Between OT and Behavioral Therapy??

OT is occupational Therapy.. more with making sure he can Do the things you need to do in life. Therapy designed to enable the individual to work with their arms and hands. Behaviorial therapy is more designed to work with temper tantrums and correcting his behaviorial problems in a set way. I would definitely make sure you are getting the right thing.

C.

1 mom found this helpful

J. -

I am surprised that a clinic would recommend behavior therapy without even seeing your son. the things you describe coudl be a result of a variety of things and many if not all ( I don't know your son) coudl be helped with OT. Behavioral therapy will look at everything he does as a behavior that must be chnged. It will not take into account anything that may be impacting him physically or neurologically. The therapy is completely geared to correct behavior.

ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) is typically used for children with autism, PDD or similar diagnoses. The goal is to use operant training to correct behavior, not unlike how you would train a dog - reward good behvior ignore or deter bad behavior. It does nothing to get to the underlying issues that may be impacting your son because ABA beleives that all behavior comes as a response from teh environment. So, if he's tantrumming, then there wmust be some kind of reward he's getting for it, or the behavior woudl stop. See? http://www.abainternational.org/

OT, OTOH, has a chance of really helping your son with what might be causing the behavior. here is some info on ABA. I think I already emailed you, recommending Amy Zier's clinic in Libertyville (www.amyzier.com). I could also recommend Michele Ricamato's clinic in Carol Stream ###-###-####. They are great and will treat your child as a special individual.

If you think your child has issues beyond sensory, you may want to check out Floortime, another intervention used for children with developmental delays and for those on the spectrum. It is much more comprehensive, works on social/emotional development, cognitive development, and will also work to help with theunderlying sensory or other issues that may be impactingyour child. We do this therapy, along with OT, with my twin boys. I may have told you that one had sensory integration disfuntion, and one PDD. Both are doing great.

You can check out some information on floortime at www.floortime.org and at www.chicgofloortimefamilies.com.

The first thing I would do is get the results of your eval. And, I'd get into a good clinic that really specializes in sensory issues. They should be able to guide you from there, and to recommend othe rtherapies, Wiht floortiem you coudl do that intervention with anyone - I do it with my some who has no issues. But, ABA, is anoher beast. I'd look into that carefully before you pursue it.

Good Luck! Feel free to email back if you have any questions.

R.

P.S. You may also want to look into hyperbaric oxygen treatment. I don't knowanything about your son's situation, but it has helped many kids with brain damage and with neuroligical or other issues.

Did you ever receive services through EI? Once your child turns 3 they can be evaluated through the school system. If he qualifies they will have a public program to help with delays and difficulties he may be having. Getting several opinions from pediatricians helps too!! Good Luck!!

Hi J.!! Occupational therapy wors to soothe an overly taxed or sensitive nero-system.. They assess to see if the kid overreacts physiologically to outside stimuli. They use a lot of physical tricks to do this, and it looks like a lot of play and they also stimulate different areas in gentle ways to help the child develp the ability to develop less sensitivity to all the stimulation coming in that other children are able to naturally block out.

Behavior therapy is for children and parents to enable them to use very specific techniques to help both the kid and the parent to use reinforcement systems to change the behvaior of the child. We use a lot of charts, talking to both the kid and the parents, setting goals, and working on "discipline" to help everybody stay calm and enble the kid to compy more with expectations.

A lot of times, kids with brain issues need BOTH,and as a psychologist, I recommend that you see an Occupational therpay group and a child psychologist in the area to help out. it works!!

Dr. J.

J.,
My son goes to The Rainbow Center for his PT and my daughter did too. They are wonderful. It is in North Aurora. If you want the number let me know. I know how hard this is. How old is your son? Just let me know if you are interested and I will give you the contact info.

S. Bailey CLD
Aurora
www.tendermomentsdoula.com

Hi J.,

I want to start off by saying I am not a professional but I am a mom of a boy who has had an OT evaluation. As best as I understand OT deals with more of the hand eye coordination concepts where as Behavioral Therapy would deal more with aggression and other emotional issues. It's hard to say what your son needs more without knowing more about his "issues" as they like to call it.My son went to Rainbow center in North Aurora for his therapy and I can highly recommend them. They are right off I-88 tollway. Let me know if I can help with anything else.

Y.
SAHM of 3 boys 10,7,4 who keep me going and going and going....

J.-

I just typed in both OT and BT on my search bar and got these 2 websites

kidshealth.org/parent/system/ill/occupational_therapy

healthatoz.com/healthstoz/Atoz/ency/cognitive-behavioral_therapy.jsp

As a former special ed teacher, stick to your guns. Do what you think is right and probably the most importan thing---EDUCATE YOURSELF!!!! Do not go into meetings trusting that the school is one an expert and two doing what is completely appropriate for your child. You know your child best.

Not that schools do not want to help you! They are overworked with too many child with special needs and who could possibly be an expert at everything and two they have limited monies and resources. Be sure to do your homework. Your son maybe only 3, but he may already qualify for specail education services through your school.

Hope I gave you some help
K.