It's Time We Start Looking for the Root Cause!

I think it's time we start looking for the root cause instead of just treating the symptoms!

In graduate school we were taught to focus on the deficit and to provide compensations without much mention of figuring out what was causing the issue in the first place. It's not that I'm against teaching compensations. I'm against teaching compensations without looking at the whole picture to figure out the root cause. Like when a child has a lisp but no one has ever looked at his open mouth posture and narrow palate. Or when a provider prescribes reflux medication to an infant without assessing feeding and body tension. Or when a child is diagnosed with ADHD without first ruling out sleep disordered breathing. The list goes on...

So in short, compensations can be really helpful in many situations but lets make sure that we're taking the time to identify the root cause and providing families with all the information they need in order to make an educated decision that's best for them. Let's help families THRIVE not just survive.