Anonymous wrote:My two cents: a healthy and constructive skepticism of any specialists/consultants (including physicians) is not a bad thing. That said, this group is great -- they speak from years of practical experience, and unlike many therapy (and medical) practices, they don't self-refer and they don't make money from referrals, tests, meds, etc. They are paid by the schools or families who hire them, that's it. In my experience, this group provides good, sound, practical observations and advice. You may not agree with their advice, which is your prerogative as a parent. For that matter, you may not agree with your child's classroom teacher's advice or pediatrician's advice every time, either. Or you may not agree with it the day that you get the advice, but it proves useful six months or a year down the road. It's part of our job as parents to cull through the information that we receive from these specialists, and I think that more information from veteran practitioners is a good thing.

+1 I am a teacher at a preschool that uses these consultants. I find them to be helpful. I do not see them at all as trying to drum up business artificially by leaning in to saying a child needs services that they do not. As I teacher, I am glad that we have them on retainer to do observations, as that eases the friction of getting a child and family into being assessed for a developmental concern. Parents are often not so comfortable initiating the public services available for developmental issues, they feel they are labeling their child and entering them into "the system". Using these private consultants on site at the school the child is already attending is a much lighter lift for families - and it is free to the families. I see them as a great resource.

Also, the process for using the consultants generally starts with me, the teacher. So it's not something the consultants can abuse. As a teacher, I make a referral based on behaviors I see in the classroom, discuss with my director, then discuss with parent and invite parent to approve having the consultants come into class and observe their child. The parent can say yes or no, of course.

These consultants may have had a good point. I am a pediatric OT with 24 years of experience and I do not own a private practice or stand to gain from this feedback. Depending on the child's age, switching hands mid-coloring could indicate decreased communication between the right and the left brain, using the corpus callosum. A skilled OT always observes a child's ability to reach across the mid-line of his or her body to pick up an item with a dominant hand, rather than picking it up with the non-dominant and passing it to the dominant hand rather than crossing the body. Of course, more observation and feedback would be needed to draw a conclusion.