Clothing Adaptations for G-Tube Access

This is a very interesting site, written by a mom of a girl with special needs.  Here'a an article title you don't see everyday:

http://adaptingcreatively.blogspot.com/2011/02/sneak-peek-at-next-g-tube-clothing.html

Here's another site, full of switch activities:

http://wednesdayswithsam.wetpaint.com/page/switch+games

Fix for Friday post

Sorry, I included weird URLs in last Friday's post on weblinks for Developmental Coordination Disorder.  Please look at the revised links in the 2/25 post.

DIY Bowling Lanes

Do some of your students go bowling as part of their community outings?  In one high school class for students with autism many of the students go bowling every week during a particular quarter of the year, but they still need to practice their bowling vocabulary.  So...in our integrated therapy session this morning we constructed a bowling lane and made our own pins and bowling balls.  We are fortunate since we have a student who can draw anything, and he created 10 bowling pin sketches for us.

At the end of the session we opened up YouTube to watch some bowling videos, which were excellent for the speech-language pathologist to use in reinforcing the bowling vocabulary we had just practiced. The classroom staff learned how to switch on the Safety Mode, to avoid some "eye-opening" pop-ups of suggested videos.  Still, there were quite a few video thumbnails showing up in the column on the right that we did not want our students exploring any further.  Viewer beware!

Developmental Coordination Disorder

One of our OTs on staff recommended these handouts on Developmental Coordination Disorder--lots of interesting ideas to use for students who seem to match the characteristics of this diagnosis, as well as students with similar needs:


http://dcd.canchild.ca/en/AboutDCD/resources/dcdrevised.pdf

http://dcd.canchild.ca/en/AboutDCD/resources/DCD_Typing.pdf



Thanks to the author,
Cheryl Missiuna, Ph.D., O.T.Reg.(Ont)
for preparing such well-written material.

Thank you, Mr. President

A huge round of applause to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for having birthdays in February--we have no school tomorrow!  Yeah!

IEP season has started.  More meetings to go to and prep for.  I'm glad we have some "calendar" IEPs and that they don't all just fall in May and June.

Our department will have training this coming Wednesday in using Flip video cameras.  I used one last year to take work videos Video Sample but haven't touched it in 6+ months.  Here's hoping it will make the video-making process a little easier...  I realize that making videos is like writing lengthy term papers, so much planning and research work before you "type" the final copy.

NEO by AlphaSmart intro video

Well, all I can say is, the NEO better be around for a looonnnggg time, 'cause it took me forever to make this video!

Same video via YouTube

Videos are wonderful tools, but they are way too labor intensive for me.  Give me some scissors and a box of crayons and get me back into a classroom.

Elevator Talk

I'm trying to think of ways to explain different aspects of working as OTs in the schools.  This is my "too long" version of how OTs analyze school tasks and help parents and school staff figure out how to help the students.  Yes, it definitely takes over 30 seconds to say.  I need help.

In schools, the occupational therapist can assist the classroom teacher and family in adapting a task so that the student can experience success. This usually means first examining the steps to an activity to find out what is preventing the student from independently performing the task.



For example, what steps in tying shoes are causing the student difficulty? Can the student cross the laces easily? Do they become confused when holding the first loop and then trying to make the second loop? If they are having difficulty, is it due to a problem with fine motor coordination? If so, the student may need to learn an adapted method of doing the task (“bunny ears” method of tying) or perhaps use adaptive materials (elastic laces or Velcro straps.) If the difficulty doesn’t seem to be due to physical reasons, then the student may need extra practice with the different steps of shoe tying several times a day at home and also at school during routine opportunities.


Once the student has been observed and the steps of the task have been examined, the classroom teacher and family will have a better idea of how to present activities to the student, or ways to modify activities, so that the student can practice their skills more effectively on an everyday basis at home and at school. Does the student require a red dot on the inside of her right shoe, to cue her into putting the correct shoe on the correct foot? Perhaps the student would benefit from using laces that are red on the left side and blue on the right in order to more easily understand that he needs to create two separate loops during the process?


As we all realize, the most important component of learning and refining new skills is practice, practice, practice. When it is a complex skill, such as shoe tying or handwriting, the steps must be broken down into little bits and mastering each little bit will require practice, practice, practice at home and also at school.