Monday, May 11, 2015

On Fixing or Not Fixing Righty or Not Righty

I speak about "CHASA moms" as if they constitute a united force, which is hardly the case.  CHASA moms express differences of opinion about home schooling, vaccinations, essential oils, Common Core, and botox; and sometimes they can't even agree on the definition or "stroke" or "hemiplegia," (for fairness sake, I should point out that neither can the medical community).

"Righty" rarely gets as cold as "lefty"
April 2015, Colorado
I'm a little surprised that a current conversation about therapy being "worth it" has not become more heated, as several posters have commented that it definitely was not worth it for them, on a post started with a cute graphic suggesting that therapy is always worth it.  "It" is not defined in this case, but could be a measure of time, of money, of lost opportunity, of extra fighting and misplaced priorities.

The problems with assessing therapy are the obvious lack of replication and lack of control. Aster is much much better at running, drawing, and telling long stories now than he was a year ago.  He's also 3 and 3/4 rather than 2 and 3/4.  One of the remarkable things about reasonably fed humans is that they grown and learn at an astounding pace, where or not they have a neurological impairment.  Sure, the therapy may be doing wonders, but so might school, chasing his brother, cooking with dad and gardening with mom. Or just time.

Beyond the big time/money/priorities problems that therapy might not be work, there is an idea floating around that it is psychologically detrimental.  By suggesting someone go to therapy, one is suggesting that something is "wrong" with him or her, and that he or she should be "fixed," or at least "righty" should be fixed.

An earlier heated debate came about because of the use of "righty."  "Righty" is apparently going to scar young children, who should learn that they are in charge of all of their limbs, none of which has a personality of their own.

Crazy semantics or is there something there?

1 comment:

Chateau said...

Very interesting; lots to think about.
Thanks.