Thanks for visiting!
I started blogging in 2007 when I entered occupational therapy (OT) school. See archives in sidebar. It started out as “OT Students (B)e(lo)n(g),” then “Days of Our OT Lives” (beginning practitioner) and finally, “Miss Awesomeness” (school-based OT, now business owner/private practice/adjunct faculty). I rarely blog anymore, but occasionally post on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter (sidebar). I’ve been neglected this site for years, but am now focusing on the “Books” tab above, as my first book just came out! The Centipede Who Couldn’t Tie His Shoes.
9
Aug
2018
I haven’t posted about OT in a loong time here! But this situation arose the other day and it got me reflecting. My friend and I were leaving a restaurant. A white-haired woman was slowly headed towards the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. She had the panicked look of someone who is scared of […]
28
Jun
2018
My first children’s picture book is finally out on Amazon as of mid-June 2018! The Centipede Who Couldn’t Tie His Shoes. So far it’s only on Amazon, but hopefully soon you’ll be able to find it in libraries and some local San Diego stores. I’m also aiming to get it in some therapy catalogs and […]
21
Mar
2018
Wow, I haven’t updated my blog in over a year! Yikes! How horrible is that! The end of 2016 and most of 2017 were pretty challenging but I think I’m ready to start blogging again/cleaning up and updating my website. For now I am just excited to say my first children’s book is coming out […]
3
Oct
2016
I am now teaching a mental health/psychosocial course to occupational therapy assistant (OTA) students at a local community college. This week we’ll be looking at the concept of “therapeutic use of self” when working with a client/consumer/patient/your preferred term here. How we can respond to behaviors in various ways, and “therapeutic use of self” is […]
10
Aug
2016
Does your child get upset easily over small and easily fixable things, like a ball rolling under a table? It may be because he doesn’t realize he has any power to fix the problem. Luckily, you can teach him to feel more empowered. I introduce to you the PSST Method! Download the PDF of this here: The PSST! Method: […]
20
Jul
2016
See flyer here: Homemade Customized Adaptive Equipment My lovely friend Beth has been working on practical adaptive equipment – creating it at a fraction of the cost of commercial design. I copied the following text from the flyer: “I want to customize or build adaptive items for children with special needs. My dream is to […]
22
Jun
2016
Retrogenesis is the process of people with Alzheimer’s/dementia reverting back to childhood stages..as dementia progresses and more brain cells are ruined, the earlier the stages…I wrote what’s below in 2008. Just stumbled across it again. I’m not a poet, I realize it’s not a masterpiece, but I like some of the concepts…body flowing forward, mind flowing […]
20
Jun
2016
I am on a Gerontology Listserv for Occupational Therapists (through the American Occupational Therapy Association), and I’ve gotten to read some really interesting posts lately by OTs about behavior in dementia they have encountered in practice, and how even bizarre behavior typically has a trigger that can be figured out. Example 1: There was a woman […]
6
May
2016
As I prepare for the mental health course I’m teaching in the Fall to OTA students (my first), I find myself consistently going back to my OT blog. I wrote over a thousand posts (not all of them high-quality, cough) while in grad school (2007-2009) and during my nine months of full-time internships, which included […]
21
Apr
2016
In my (former) work as a school-based occupational therapist, I was saddened daily at the lack of self-advocacy in the majority of the children I was treating. I provide the following as a (fictionalized but typical) scenario where I help teach self-advocacy. The background information: Sam is 6 years old and in first grade. He spent […]
