Pediatric Therapy Service Delivery 101: What’s the Difference and Why Does It Matter to Life Care Planners?

Children with disabilities often participate in therapy services to help remediate or accommodate their physical and functional limitations. To increase their clients’ independence, therapists also recommend and assist clients with obtaining assistive technology. Allied health professionals, specifically speech, physical, and occupational therapists, psychologists, and audiologists, primarily work in two broad settings, medically-based or educationally-based. Similarities and differences, as well as benefits and disadvantages, exist between the two settings. Projected evaluations and projected therapeutic modalities are two common life care plan categories (Riddick-Grisham & Deming, 2011; Weed & Berens, 2018) which frequently contain recommendations for allied health services. Life care planners who possess a foundational understanding of these models will communicate more effectively with the team and will provide stronger recommendations and rationale in the related life care plan categories.