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.

Blog 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

Content

1) Positive statement

• I am most proud of the examples I used for my answer from my mentorship because I felt that it helped the audience understand better. I was also a bit proud of my activity because I got a lot of feedback say that it reinforced my answer.

2) Questions to consider

     a. I would give myself a P

     

     b. I believe I met all the P consideration requirements and I didn't have any problems in the other areas of the rubric as well (professionalism, organization & creativity, etc.). In other words, I think I did a P worthy presentation.

3) My answer worked for me for the Lesson 2 presentation because I was able to reference to my mentorship a lot and learn about my answer a lot from my mentorship. 

4) To improve the Lesson 2 Presentation, I would have done a better powerpoint and perhaps rehearse more so I don't say "um" too much.

5) Finding Value

• I think my answer 2 will be " OTs can frequently expose the children to reality roles through natural interactions with normally functioning kids and adults."

Started at "Yes I Can! Occupational Therapy Inc."

January 10, I started at a new occupational therapy clinic called Yes I Can! which specializes for kids from 0-3 with suspected autism. The clinic is a bit different from the CSC. Both clinics have a "gym" or sensory room (that's what it's called at Yes I Can!) but the clinic for the 0-3 year olds have a messy room and a feeding/fine motor room.

This is the feeding and fine motor room. Some of the kids have trouble eating, like they can eat certain textures of foods. I was talking to the OT there, Mary Ellen, and she told me that there was a child that only ate ketchup and another child that would throw-up at the sight of apple sauce and the sight of anything that had a similar texture to it. This is when and OT would intervene because since the child is throwing up with the sight of the texture, it interferes with the child's occupation to being able to eat and hold food down.
This is also the room where some of the kids will read books to help with their attention and do puzzles to practice their visual and orientation. I saw a child today do an alphabet puzzle by being about to recognize and say the letter even though it was upside down or tilted to the side. They were also able to quickly find the proper spot for the piece.







To the left is the sensory room, where the kids typically play. The goal of the room is to have the child enter the room, have a plan of what they want to do in the room, and execute their plan. Some kids won't know what to do, or will have an idea of what to do but won't execute it well. One child would chose a toy, like the blocks, dump it out and just leave it. The OT pointed out that they just had trouble executing because they were able to decide on what to play but not able to decide how they wanted to play.






Below is a picture of the Messy room(left) where typically the kids paint. A child who was nauseated by the texture and sight of shaving cream was also queasy about paint. Too get them use to both textures, Mary Ellen had them finger paint and make hand prints. For some kids she also pours rice or beans in the table and hides items, like cars of animals, in it so kids that have sensitive nerves can play in it. I did see one child recently, sit in the bean bucket (right) because their feet were sensitive. The feet would curl up when the beans were poured in it.

Above is a pamphlet from Yes I Can! and gift I got from one mom and her kids c:

Blog 12: Third Interview Questions

Content

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

2) What kinds of play should these specific kids practice? Why?

3) What do you think is the most significant type of play a child within this age range should learn? Why?

4) Do you think social skills is an important thing to teach kids at this particular age (not regarding if the child has special needs) ? Why or why not?

5)  What kinds of communication skills do you think is significant to learn for these specific kids?

6) What social skill do you think the kid's have the most trouble learning? Why do you think that is?

7) Do parents, siblings or other family members play a significant role in encouraging and teaching social skills?

8) Do the kids in Kid's Crew show growth by the end of the program? In what ways?

9) What do you find most difficult about teaching these kids social skills?

10) Why are social skills so important to teach 4-8 year olds with special needs, rather than just having them learn as they get older?