Co-treatment, or sometimes referred to as a co-treat, refers to when two different disciplines provide treatment for one child at the same time. For example, the speech-language pathologist and occupational therapist work together to implement both of their goals into one therapy session. Co-treating can be any combination of therapists, including developmental therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, social workers, nutritionists, or any of the other members on your child’s therapy team.
When it comes to therapy, doesn’t more equal better?
Not necessarily. There is no one-size-fits-all recommendation for therapy frequency and is entirely dependent on the needs of your child. Some children benefit from multiple sessions of the same discipline to provide intense focus on specific goals, while others may benefit from a combined therapeutic approach. When an increase in therapy is recommended, it is best to consider both individual and co-treatment sessions.
What are the benefits of a co-treatment session?
There are many reasons why your team of therapists may recommend a co-treatment for your child. Below are just a few:
- Co-treatments with OT or PT
- When sensory regulation support is needed in order to attend to therapy activities
- Gross motor activities may increase your child’s verbal output
- Postural support may increase your child’s success in various therapy activities
- Co-treatments with DT or SW
- Behavioral strategies may be easier implemented with two trained therapists to support your child’s needs
- Your child requires additional support to establish early developmental milestones prior to focusing on more complex therapy tasks
- Co-treatments with SLP
- When your child demonstrates a receptive language (comprehension) delay and benefits from modified cues for therapy directions
- Appropriate language models can be implemented into structured tasks to increase verbalizations
- General benefits
- Therapists are able to brainstorm new therapeutic strategies and modify approaches in real-timeto see what works best for your child
- Your child is already receiving multiple therapies per week and may become fatigued with additional sessions
How do I know if a co-treatment session is right for my child?
The first step is to talk to your current team of therapists to review your child’s individual goals. Depending on their needs, you and your team will be able to decide if a co-treatment session would be beneficial for your child. If you do decide upon a co-treatment, discuss the therapy plan prior to implementation to make sure that your child is not being placed under too many demands. A successful co-treatment will use basic principles of resource allocation to guide therapy – basically, your child only has so many resources to spend on one difficult task at a time, so they should not be challenged in both discipline areas during the same task (i.e. working on both speech therapy and occupational therapy goals while playing with one toy). This most likely will be asking too much of your child and will often cause them to be unsuccessful with both goals.
Questions or concerns?
If you have questions or concerns about implementing a co-treatment session for your child, please contact us at info@playworkschicago.com or 773-332-9439.
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