Brainwave

[loobywhitwell]

Hi

We're off to brainwave in bridgewater in March with DS 3. Can anyone tell me what to expect & share their experiences with me.

Many thanks

Louise

aarrrgh. dont say that. Its not costing us anything & they have paid for fights down to bristol too, so its worth a shot. Anybody else been?? Thanks for being honest though Riven.

We're due to go back in Brainwave for another re-assessment in March. Their programmes have really worked for our ds. (3 years; cp; non-verbal)
We have had practically no help from the NHS / LEA and plenty of doom and gloom. (Have had to pay for everything and yet the people who have failed to help us - yet still manage to turn up to the Team Around the Child meetings! - are really anti them.)
They gave us a clear plan which has given us a framework for the private help we've sought and most importantly they were really positive about him.
They also chart where your child is developmentally and update it each time they go back. Have found it useful for evidence as to why ds should have certain amount of provision in his statement.

never done brainwave, but we did CE and I assume they are all along the same line where they try to help you help your child reach thier full potential (what ever that might be) I found ce hard and it wsn't right for dd, so I assume it would be the same with this. but what I did find is that it stopped me seeing dd as this ppoor little girl who couldn't do things, abd helped me to realise what she could do,. hopefully the same will happen for you.

yep know how you feel Riv, definately need some skills to start off with, ds attended conductive education nursery daily for over 3 years with no change.

no experience of Brainwave and i know its probably totally different but on another note i am a bit cynical of therapies like Advance etc that charge you a fortune and you spend all your day doing excercises which may or may not make a difference when you could be out enjoying life instead of beating yourself up whether you're doing enough or not.

my friend was looking at one of them but decided instead to spend the money on an all terrain buggy to get her daughter out and about more....she loves it!

personally i wouldnt pay for Brainwave as its providing what the NHS should be and of course they will be positive about your child....you're paying them and they want to keep you coming back as its more money.

my friend didnt want to start it as she knew she would feel obliged to keep going and it is quite expensive if you are paying it yourself

sorry i am just a cynical old witch today, not meaning to put anyone off, honest!

didin't know you had to pay for it, in that can I would do Conductive education as you ca get that for free

ds gets a couple of hours of physio a week but he is at a SN school with not many pupils, that will all change in August though as they are merging two schools so it remains to be seen what therapy will be available.

we were lucky as education agreed to fund ds's place at the Conductive Education school up here, he had 6 months of Parent & baby 1 afternoon a week, then a year of Parent & Child 3 days a week then 2 years of nursery at 4 days a week, he didnt love it to be honest but liked the social side of it

we did school for parents, it meant an hours drive each way and was very full on, but it was free.

We have been to Brainwave twice and found it really useful. The only thing i would say is that if your child isn't on form on the day then of course it's going to be hard for them to assess.At the time my dd was not getting any input from professionals at home and Brainwave was a godsend.I sincerely hope that they can help you and your child.