Dragon Dictation or other voice dictation software?
I work with elementary school kids as a school based OT and sometimes I have sixth graders with some significant challenges that lead me to think voice dictation software would be the best bet. EXCEPT, that as far as I can tell, pretty much all the voice dictation software out there is bad, especially when talking about for like, 10-12 year olds who don't necessarily have crisp voices.
this broke my heart
“One night Moses started exploring Jenny’s face. “He’d touch my eyes with his trunk, and then his eyes. Touch my ears, then his ears. Then my mouth, then his mouth. But then he circled my nose again and again and again.”
Perception Affects Reality: Focus on Progress
“Perception is reality” is quite true. If you perceive there are flying unicorns out your window, then you are going to act like it, because that’s your reality. Now of course, everybody around you realizes your perception isn’t reality, but that doesn’t help you when that’s how YOU see it.
Do you all remember those studies showing that if you told teachers that some of their students who were performing poorly were actually quite brilliant (regardless of whether it was true), then came back later to check in, that those kids were actually doing much better?? Because the teachers perceived them differently and treated them accordingly. The teacher’s perceptions influenced reality and it made it happen.
Such a good point
A great post on disability
So much to a few of my friends dismay, I'm really not so great about focusing on disability as a political or linguistic construct, but this was an absolutely fabulous post on disability.
I'm channeling the Recycling OT…
Check this out, Recycling Occupational Therapist!! (She has her own website…) I did it!! I used a box cutter or something and for some reason I had it in my mind that cutting this milk carton would be a traumatizing, difficult experience, but it was sooo easy! I did it to turn the handle parts into ball-catching thingies. I saw that on Pinterest, homemade ball catching thingies, I forget the real term, and it was so cool. I haven’t tried them yet though. But now that I realize it’s easy to cut things out in that plastic (I always thought Recycling OT was super cool but super hardcore and that I could never do it), I’m going to have to do it more often. 🙂
Watch those receipts…
So I try to be careful about keeping my receipts for things I buy for work in a separate area for tax purposes….so I examine them closely and I have to say, I thought it was pretty funny that this says I bought “Zinkies Girls Ass”……Ahahahaha wow. Really?
Jan Olsen of Handwriting without Tears in Costco Connection
I love Costco and their Costco Connection and it was super cool to see Jan Olsen, Occupational Therapist of Handwriting Without Tears fame in their magazine. 🙂 Rock on with your handwriting bad self! I may have missed it, but I know AOTA is pretty good about mentioning PR and I never saw any mention of it anywhere…
Scratch-off coupons for hand strengthening
Scratch-off coupons…I got a pile at Kohl’s one day with permission. I give my OT kids one and a coin and show them how they can use it to scratch off the silver stuff and tell me how much my coupon is for so I can go buy some clothes!!! I like it for a hand strengthening activity because they have to use quite a bit of pressure. I just noticed in this picture that my kid’s thumb is kind of hyperextended which is not ideal so I need to watch for that.
I saw somewhere on pinterest once where you can make your own scratch-off things and it looked cool but also like something that was too much work for me most of the time! I’d rather visit Kohl’s every once in a while, lol.
Karen
My boring stick people need hula-hoops: lefts and rights
Meet my boring stick people. They are SO SUPER boring, that the only way to make them fun is to give them hula hoops. 🙂
Materials: “Bobbins” racks from Michael’s or other sewing or craft stores + some white plastic rings that had something to do with sewing as well.
Activity: Put “hula hoops” on stick people via my directions, ie “Row 2, left…..Row 3, middle left…Row 1, right….”
Working on: lefts/rights, following directions, etc. I mostly put this together to work on lefts/rights. 🙂
Note: I put a L and R on my hands with marker ALMOST every day (and often on my kids hands)…The other day I asked a kid to show me his left hand during an evaluation. He had trouble with it. A few minutes later I did something and he spotted the L and R on my hands and was like “You’re cheating!!!!” ahahahahaa