Fine Motor Exercise

An example of fine motor movement is like type, drawing, or pinching. It involves the "little" muscles of your fingers. Some kids have trouble controlling their fine motor muscles, so there are a few exercises OTs use to improve the kids' fine motor ability.

The pictures above are of the kids from Kid's Crew at Casa Colina, doing fine motor activities. Volunteers would put the lite brite pegs in the silly putty, and the kids would have to stretch and rip apart the putty to find the pegs and put it in the canvas.

Blog 18: Third Answer

Content

EQ How can an occupational therapist best prepare a 4-8 year-old child

 with special needs to thrive in a social environment?

Answer #3 An OT can improve the child's self-awareness through various methods.

Detail 1 Self-awareness is when a person has the ability to be aware of his or her own cognitive functions, and the ability to self-monitor and self-correct behavior. An individual with impaired self-awareness may be unmotivated, uncooperative, displays poor judgement, and fails to see the need for compensatory strategies.

Detail 2 Goal attainment scaling (GAS) is a method to measure an individual's performance; it can be used to monitor one's participation. This is allows client-oriented goal and a track progress for the OT. An example, from OT practice is that the client, Samantha, set out a goal for her to maintain an appropriate volume voice. The OT would supervise and score her based on her behavior.

Detail 3 The other method OT practice mentions is video self-modeling (VSM) which is based on a theory where children learn social skills through watching. A child would watch him or herself perform a desired behavior. Like the GAS, the client or child would set a goal for themselves, in which they will practice.

According to Jennifer Flemming, a senior researcher in occupational therapy, "Self-Awareness".

According to Lauren Foster and Kelsey Lueger, from the OT practice magazine, "Model Behavior".

Conclusion Using one of the two methods to  increase a child's self-awareness will allow the child be conscious of his or her actions towards other, improving social skills.

Blog 17: Fourth Interview

Content

1) Do OTs consider a child's IEP when deciding the child's needs? If not, how do OTs determine what a child needs to work on?

2) What can you tell me about Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA program)?

3) Would you say ABA is an effective approach to improve a child's social skills? Why or why not?

4) When it comes to social skills, how would you improve a child with ASD, ADHD, Down Syndrome or CP social skills? (What approach would you take?)
• Do kids with CP need help in social skills?

5) What can you tell me about didactic, naturalistic, and pragmatic approaches for communication intervention?

6) Of the 3 interventions what do you find most effective in improving social skills? How so?

7) Are there alternative ways to improve a child's communication skills other than group sessions?

8) How can parents help to improve their child's social skills considering the child's special needs?

9) Does a child's IEP influence an OTs approach to the child's needs during the therapy sessions? How so?

10) How would an OT conduct a group session with the goal to improve social skills for children with either ASD, ADHD, DS,  or CP? Would there be a different approach for each disorder?

11) What is the difference between how a speech pathologist improves a child's social or communication skills and how an OT improves a child's social or communication skills?

12) How does and OT improve social skills on a child who is considered non-verbal?

13) How can an OT increase responsiveness in a child with ASD?

14) How can an OT improve a child's social problem solving and cognitive-executive process?

15) What models of social competence or social outcome do the OT's here use to help them improve a child's social skills? (ie. heuristic, Cavells, etc.)

16) What can you tell me about the social information process for typical kids in this age range?

17) In what ways do group sessions treat the social challenges in children?

18) To improve a child's social deficit, what does an OT look for in the child's evaluation?

19) Can you tell me an example of how a child's social skills have shown growth through their time in group sessions and therapy?

20) How can an OT best prepare a 4-8 year old child with special needs to thrive in a social environment?

Thought Bubble?

Above is a picture of one of the lesson in Kid's Crew. In this lesson the kid's learned about what and what not to say. Things that the kid's shouldn't say should stay in their thought bubble, in other words, their head. In the exercise above, the teacher asked the kids, "Would this go in your thought bubble or would you tell someone this?". The exercise was also to help the kids know what to say to stay on topic on a conversation. 

Blog 16: Advisory Meeting #2

Content

EQ How can occupational therapist best prepare a 4-8 year old child 

with special needs to thrive in a social environment?

Answer #2 An OT can best prepare a child by using either didactic, naturalistic, or pragmatic styles of communication intervention based on the child's articular needs. 

Detail 1 Didactic approaches are effective in developing attention, understanding language, and initiating speech. DTI, Discrete Trial Initiation, is an example of a didactic approach in which a child continues to do a particular exercise until they produce a particular response. 

Detail 2 Naturalistic approaches are similar to didactic but just take place in more natural environments of the client. This approach uses intrinsic reinforces, which is the satisfaction of achieving a desired goal through communication. 

Detail 3 Pragmatic, also called developmental, approach encourages the development of multiple aspects of communication. The multiple aspects would include the use of gestures, gazing and vocalization, especially for kids who are non verbal. 

According to Rhea Paul,  doctor professor of Yale's Child Study Center, 

article on "Interventions to Improve Communication".

Conclusion By understanding a particular child's deficit in social skills, and occupational therapist can improve it through either a didactic, naturalistic, or pragmatic approach. 

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

Content

1) I found a Children's development course in which I have enrolled in and will take notes on. (Just scroll  down the link below the log in request)

2) To meet the expectation of the 30 hours, I'll track my hours on a log and as evidence, and I will keep notes of what I learn throughout the course.

3) This will explore my topic more in depth because it will allow me to understand the milestones of children and how a typical child would develop. This information will allow me to know what some kids should work on.

4) The log link is to the right

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

Content

• Literal

a) I, Ashley Dalan, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

b) I was able to complete the first part of my independent component through a MIT open course software by Abby Noyce. The second part of my independent component, I completed through my mentorship at Casa Colina and a new clinic I started shadowing at, Yes I can! Occupational Therapy Inc. 

Citation for course: 

Noyce, Abby. Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience, Summer 2008. (MIT OpenCourseWare: Massachusetts Institute of Technology), http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/biology/introduction-to-cognitive-neuroscience (Accessed 6 Feb, 2014). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 

c) Independent Component log to the right.

d) I completed part of the Intro to Cognitive Neuroscience course, where I learned parts of the interactions of the brain to the other parts of the body. Cognitive neuroscience concentrates on the interactions and involvement of the central nervous system. Through my mentorship I completed some observation hours.

• Interpretive

The cognitive neuroscience course represents part of my 30 hours of work through notes that I have taken on the class of several lectures that I reviewed. My mentorship hours is represent on the log through my observations of the different clients I observed. 

• Applied

I think the mentorship helped mostly with my foundation for my senior topic because I was able to learn all the sorts of things OTs help kids with. I learned that OTs help with ANYTHING that disturbs a child's occupation. I learned this at Yes I Can! Occupational Therapy Inc. when a child had sensitive feet with made it hard for the mom to cut his toe nails. Typically an OT wouldn't need to assist with this issue, but since it's affecting the child's hygiene, the OT needs to take part by finding ways to desensitize the feet.