Banish Bad Therapy!

Posted by Ashley, Special Educator

In a previous post, "Not All Therapists Are Created Equal," I discussed the qualities of a good therapist.  That post focused on the idea that, regardless of qualifications on paper, all therapists have different strengths, weaknesses, and experiences.  Therapists who look the same on paper may not be the same in practice.  Clinical judgement is a difficult thing to teach.  The sad truth is that there are some bad therapists out there.  I hope my previous post has helped our parent readers to evaluate their child's therapists.

Because I have previously provided my thoughts on what defines good and bad therapists, I think it is now important to discuss what this means for your child.  This sounds like common sense, but I think it is worth saying anyway: bad therapists will provide bad therapy.  I will not go into extensive detail about what makes a bad therapist or what defines bad therapy because that information is available in "Not All Therapists Are Created Equal."  This post will focus on the effects of bad therapy.  

What I want you to know is that bad therapists and bad therapy can have detrimental effects for your child.  If you have identified that your therapist is not right for your family, please make a change--and do it quickly! I know that requesting a change in therapist can feel awkward or intimidating, and can even come with feelings of guilt.  For any parents out there who find themselves struggling with this decision, I write this post for you!  I want you to know the effects of bad therapy so that you can make an informed decision for your child.  What you are about to read may sound frightening.  It is not my intention to scare you, but I do want you to know the truth so that you and your family can receive the best therapy possible.


So, what do you need to know?

One of the most important things you need to know is that bad therapy results in lost learning opportunities for your child.  For all young children, every moment is a learning moment.  This does not mean that every second of the day is spent formally teaching a child.  It means that we are accidentally teaching our children all the time, and that they are learning and absorbing information from their environments.  Many of our children with special needs, especially those who fall on the autism spectrum, may experience their environments differently than we do.  Many of our children with special needs do not incidentally acquire skills in the same way that their typically-developing peers may.  For many of our learners, we need to teach certain skills more directly and intentionally.  Knowing what to teach and how to teach it are crucial characteristics of a good therapist.  Good therapists will maximize your child's learning opportunities.  To the contrary, bad therapists will cause your child to miss out on potential learning opportunities.

But, the effects do not stop there.

Bad therapy leads not only to lost learning opportunities, but also lost learning time.  Time is an important factor in educating our little learners.  Our children with special needs are already functioning below their typically-developing peers in one or more area (that is what makes them eligible for special education services).  The goal of early identification and services is to close that gap.  In other words, Early Intervention aims to help our little learners catch up to their typically-developing peers, and hopefully reduce the need for special education services in the future.  In achieving this goal, every day and every moment matters.  Any time spent receiving bad therapy is time taken away from your child's progress.  Bad therapy can even lead to regression--it can actually cause your child to move backwards.  And, most importantly, time spent on bad therapy cannot be recovered.  Think of it this way: there is already a developmental gap between a child with special needs and his or her peers.  The goal of Early Intervention is to provide our students with intensive services to help close that gap.  So, what happens if your child is receiving bad services?  That gap continues to grow larger.  As his or her typically-developing peers are continuing to learn and acquire new skills, your child's learning is remaining stagnant.  This results in an increasingly large achievement gap that becomes increasingly more difficult to close.  That time cannot be regained.  This is why I urge you to follow your instincts and quickly make a change if you feel that you have a bad therapist.

This idea of lost time especially applies to children who present with behavioral concerns.  Prior to entering the field of Early Intervention, I spent several years teaching adolescents.  I taught students who displayed severe interfering behavior, including intense aggression and self-injury.  These students had spent years receiving bad therapy or not receiving therapy at all.  Their severe behavior had resulted in isolation, medication, and limited educational opportunities.  Of course, when these students came to us and were finally enrolled in a reputable behavioral program, their interfering behaviors were reduced and their learning was increased.  Those are the effects of good therapy, after all.  I believe in every individual's ability to learn at any age.  But, despite the progress we made, I could never undo the years of bad therapy those students received.  I could never erase the years of inappropriate behavioral management.  I could never replace the years of lost learning opportunities.  We could move forward from where they were--and that is what we did--but I could never give them back that lost time.  During the years that these students received bad therapy, they missed out on countless opportunities to practice communication skills (many of them came to me with no means of functional communication at all), to learn social skills, to develop friendships, to build healthy and meaningful relationships with their families, and to learn important daily living skills (e.g. toilet training, getting dressed, using a telephone, etc.).  This is heartbreaking.  As a teacher who loves her students, I celebrated every one of my student's achievements.  I was proud of every step forward.  But, I also had to wonder what could have been.  How different could these students' lives and futures have been if they had received good therapy all along?  Unfortunately, I will never know the answer to that.  Experiencing this type of tragedy is what ultimately brought me to the field of Early Intervention--in Early Intervention I felt that I had the opportunity to prevent other students and families from having the experiences I had witnessed. In Early Intervention I have the power to provide good therapy from the very beginning.

But, please remember that not all therapists are created equal.  There are good and bad therapists at any age.  Bad therapists, and the bad therapy they provide, can have detrimental effects on the students with whom they work.  As professionals, we must not tolerate bad therapists.  We must speak up when we see bad therapy, and we must offer support to those therapists to help them become better.  And for the therapists who do not become better, we must not allow them to continue being therapists.  This is our ethical responsibility as educators.  We have an obligation to protect the children we serve.  As parents, I hope that you too will speak up if your child has a bad therapist.  Please know what your rights are and know what you are entitled to.  You are your child's most important advocate.  If your instincts tell you that you have a bad therapist, please listen to them.  Do not allow a bad therapist to waste your child's time, potential, or future.  There is no rewind button.  That time and those opportunities can never be replaced.  Fight for your children and get them good therapists--early and appropriate services change lives.