4 Jan 2013

Board copying the longest words in the English language :)

The other day I had four of my 3rd graders copy “supercalifrag….ocious” which is 34 letters long, off the board to practice changing their focus near and far and from vertical to horizontal. I used a crazy long word to make it silly and exciting.

I’ll probably occasionally use this list (between 27 and 45 letters) just so the kids have bragging rights of copying off the longest words in the dictionary, but I also like to have them copy names of things they like. One of my kids loves Pokemon and he knows when he sees me on a certain day of the week he can bring his Pokemon book and I’ll use Pokemon characters as his board copying words. 🙂

Updated with a picture: The longest word in the dictionary is seen below, “pneumonoultramicrosilicovolcanoconiosis” which one of my 2nd graders did the other day! I think it’s 84 letters…

Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 3

4 Jan 2013

Toys'R'Us has a Differently Abled section

I recently found out via Advance magazine that Toys’R’Us has a “Differently Abled” section where you can find toys suited for children with special needs.

If you click the link above, it takes you to an explanation of the guide for differently abled kids, including where to get paper copies on bulks (ie for therapists) or how to look at it online.
I haven’t checked it out in detail, but until the Advance article I’ve never seen it mentioned, so thought I’d share that it might be a good resource for finding toys for kids with special needs! 
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 1

2 Jan 2013

Top Ten Most Popular Baby Names of 2012: How easy will they be to handwrite? :)

According to BabyCenter.com, the most popular 2012 baby names are:

Male Names, starting at most popular:

Liam, Ethan, Noah, Mason, Jacob, Jack, Aiden, Logan, Jackson, Lucas
Female Names starting at most popular:
Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Ava, Isabella, Mia, Ella, Emily, Lily, Chloe
How does this relate to occupational therapy? Any occupational therapist who has ever had to teach handwriting and teach a young child how to write their name, knows how crucial teaching a name can be. It’s often the first thing the child starts writing, starting in preschool, and has to jot hastily down on every piece of paper for the rest of their lives. 
For ANY child, special needs or not, a short name (or an easy nickname) with primarily vertical lines and at best a few curves will be easiest. Diagonals are the trickiest and require more developmental maturity than vertical and horizontal lines. And some letters are more prone to reversals than others such as b, d, p, q. 

When I look at these top tens from a Handwriting Without Tears standpoint, none of them look too bad for a child with special needs to have to write. For Isabella, I’d vote for shortening it to “Bella” rather than “Izzy” because it is a really challenging one, two z’s and a y! Diagonal city!
If I had to name my child and knew in advance they would have significant special needs, I’d possibly try to find a 3 to four letter name that started with either a capital E, F, T, or L, and then had just a few simple lowercase letters, ideally avoiding b, d, or diagonals. (For example, Ella was a great one! Big line down, little lines across! Little line, little line! Magic c, little line! Even better would just be “Lila”.)
I often come across parents who lament that they would have named their child something differently had they known how much trouble the child would have handwriting! Realistically I’m sure if I truly had a perfect name picked out already then I would just go with the name I want and either give the child a nickname or just work a lot with my child on learning how to handwrite it! I’m not a HUGE fan of nicknames though, because they complicate things a little bit for a child with special needs, having two names to respond to and/or recognize and/or explain.
The most challenging name I ever had to teach (while working as a student occupational therapist in rural Mississippi at a pediatric clinic) was unique enough that I won’t share it, but I’ll give a fake name equivalent instead to explain – Ja-ni’queaL- the child’s name had an uppercase letter both at the beginning and end of the name, plus a dash, plus an apostrophe!
Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the top most popular baby names of 2012 from a pediatric occupational therapist perspective!
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 1

2 Jan 2013

The American Academy of Pediatrics says recess is really necessary. CONCUR!

Recess is Important

I agree 10,00000000000% (maybe I should have spent more time in math understanding percentages).  Recess is SO IMPORTANT – think back on your life and how valuable that break was to you. I know we have a lot to cover, but if it’s low quality because the kids need a break and aren’t paying attention, then it’s not really helping. 

Giving the kids an unstructured short break outside gives them a way to decompress, learn social skills, be creative, get some sensory motor input, and more. Our schools have a 15 minute morning recess and a 15 minute lunch recess and I am very glad they do. It helps the students self-regulate and get back to class ready to learn. 
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none