Why Motor System Variability Can Be a Good Thing

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/01/inconsistent-good/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hu-twitter-general

Really intriguing study/article about how inconsistency/variability is actually teaching us a lot. Click link above for details. 🙂 Interesting to think about from the OT perspective.

"“The analogy I often use is evolution,” Ölveczky said. “In evolution, genes change, and that’s how you can learn as an organism. It’s the same with the motor system. The way the motor system learns is by changing things, not through recombination, but by changing the output, and then carefully monitoring how each of those changes results in better or worse performance.

“This may seem like a fairly counterintuitive finding because you could take the view that the more precisely you can produce a movement, the more control you have, so the better you should be able to learn,” Ölveczky said. “But that’s not necessarily true. What we’re saying is … you need to explore first to find the solution that best fits your needs for a task. Then once you find it, you can exploit it and try to reduce variability. I think this should give people some understanding and appreciation of the errors they make, and that they’re actually, fundamentally, a design feature rather than a flaw in what their brain is doing."

How To Use A Single Toy To Work on Any Motor Skill

http://www.melissaanddoug.com/bead-sequencing-learning-set

I recently wrote Melissa and Doug (an amazing high quality brand that is in like every store you will ever walk into, except well, gas stations or something), and let them know I love their products but that they are missing a few pieces. For example, they often have great “extension activities” written on the back of their products that are developmentally awesome and clearly written by someone very skilled. Yet the average person won’t understand WHY these extension activities are helpful/useful, especially in regards to its applications to daily life skills. Many people think play is a waste of time and children are better off spending their time learning their academic skills. These people need education, because play is the number one way that children learn about their environment, and they need really strong foundational skills in their awareness of their own body and brain’s capabilities before they can truly apply it most successfully to the academic environment. All play toys can be used to work on academic skills and/or skills applicable to daily life interactions, with just some creative tweaking.

For example, I took this toy off their site at random and instantly spouted off the following ideas. Their website talks about how it works on matching, sequencing, and fine motor skills. Great, and I realize they don’t want to write a sixty page essay on its other uses. But I can. AHAHAHAAHAHA.  It can be slightly modified – easily and without set-up – to work on many other types of skills. Gross motor, fine motor, sensory motor, ocular motor, visual motor…executive functioning skills, speech skills, general cognition, etc etc.

Any OT worth their salt (salts not worth that much these days though, so maybe worth their titanium), would be able to easily rattle off another six thousand trillion jillion zakillion more ideas within seconds. And I never exaggerate. Okay, one time I did. Like sixty years ago.

Bed-making Energy Conservation: OT tip of day

It can be easier to make your bed while still in it. While lying down spread the sheets into their most appropriate areas and then slip out. It’s either good enough or easier to finish. Be like a starfish!

Hire This 4th Grader to Help You Fire Your Mother

Background: John is very angry with his mom about a big decision that was upsetting to him.

Mother reports: “John asked me into his room, shut the door, sat me down at his Lego table and told me he had to “let me go”. He handed me an envelope with some peppermints and bandaids. Compensation, I believe. This week he gave me and Shane (ed note: father) some progress charts. He said we could skip the meetings.”

Jerk Chart

Notice the chart that shows levels of behavior:

OT Lego Strategies for Children

Dear OT,

My preschooler, John, loves playing with Legos. Unfortunately he gets frustrated because his hands are weak and his fine motor skills aren’t as good as his classmates. Any ideas? – Jane

Hi Jane,
Legos are great for working on many developmentally appropriate skills. Some strategies you can teach your child to make Lego play a little easier include:

LEGO STRATEGIES (Click link to download as PDF) Lego strategies
(Note: Consider practicing on larger Legos first!)

PLACE LEGOS LOWER AND CLOSER TO BODY

Place the legos closer to his body and make sure they are lower than his arms. He can stand up and push down on the Legos for more strength (thanks to the physics of levers – this is true for staplers and similar items as well).  That way his entire body is being used for the interlocking of the bricks, compensating for his hand weakness.

USE PALM, NOT FINGERS, TO FULLY INTERLOCK

For the bigger pieces, if interlocking bricks are in correct position, just not fully pushed together, first move the item closer and lower as noted above, then use the flattened palm of hand to press them down firmly. The palm has more force/easier than the fingers. If a tower, it may need to be stabilized with the other hand to prevent tipping over.

TEMPORARILY MOVE UNSTABLE AREAS TO A STABLE AREA TO ADD ON MORE PIECES
If there is empty space beneath part of a Lego due to the design, it can get difficult/frustrating to add onto that Lego area. Temporarily remove that part of the design so that it’s fully on the flat/stable surface. Add on the necessary extra pieces. Then place the entire part back where it belongs.

Jane, I hope this helps. I imagine there are many sites on the Internet that can be explored to find even more ideas. Good luck with John! Therapeutically yours, OT 🙂

PS: There are plenty of OT skills that can be worked on using Legos! Fine motor, visual motor, problem-solving, social skills…let me know if you want more information!

Kids are Awesome: Self-Advocacy Gone Awry

One of my power words of the year is SELF-ADVOCACY. Teaching children to ask for what they want and need to make their lives easier. Of course, when dealing with the awesomeness of children, it doesn’t always quite work as we expect. 🙂 One of my Facebook friends posted this about her child and I laughed hysterically. I screen-shot the status.

So my middle was annoying me and I kissed the top of his head, admittedly to encourage him to be on his merry way and stop blocking my Facebook, but instead he told me he needed another kiss. So I gladly kissed his curly head again and off he went. So I called after him, “I like it when you tell me what you needddddd…” To which he smiled and replied, “I need a rocket launcher and a car and a bazooka and machine gun and a rope…” That wasn’t what I meant.

OTs Help Put the Able into Actionable: R A W = S A

READY +ABLE +WILLING = Successful Action

 A psychologist friend recently told me about the phrase “Ready, Willing, and Able”.  All three components must be there for any Successful Action to occur.

R.A.W. = S.A.

Possible reasons for inaction:

*Ready, able, NOT willing

*Willing, able, NOT ready

*Ready, willing, NOT able

When the person is ready and willing yet not ABLE it is typically the most self-devastating. In all of the above cases, especially “not able”, an occupational therapist can help.

Whether it’s a challenge physically, mentally, or a combination of the two, OTs break down the issues and help figure out how to find and repair the missing link. Then all three components (ready, able, willing) are there, subsequently leading to an action, and therefore meaningful and appropriate participation!

If you click on the “Printables” tag, this should be up there as a PDF that can be easily printed. The first page is somewhat of a “cheat sheet” and pages 2-4 are the longer detailed version. Page 5 is an accident. Sorry.  (Oh look, I managed to insert it here which is good because I also apparently don’t know to upload it to printables yet. Can you tell my website/type of blogsite is new and I have no idea what I’m doing?)

RAWSA in OT: Focusing on Successful Action

Click the read more link to see example stories of depression/executive functioning deficits affecting a person’s actions [and my typical excessive details]! (It turns out I also don’t know how to use the read more link appropriately either. AHAHAHAHAA. Soon!!)

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Cutting/fine motor manipulation/imagination: OT Activity

ACTIVITY

1. Take dinosaur post-it or other random animal paper. Child cuts across animal.

2. Child is veterinarian and fixes animal. (Skim over the fact we were directly responsible for its hurt, cough).

3. Give child a band-aid.

4. Child puts animal pieces together in right orientation, secures band-aid.

See below about grading the activity, skills worked on, and extra notes, while I figure out how to add in a “read more” link 🙂

TO GRADE ACTIVITY (change difficulty level) depending on child’s strengths/weaknesses:

Cutting:
Harder: Multiple lines, thinner lines, curvy or wiggled lines, lower contrast lines, more directions, having child make own lines first and cut out own.
Easier: One thick line, high contrast, fewer directions, no line at all, thicker paper (like a manila folder, construction paper, index card), modified scissors

Band-aid:
Harder:Child gets out band-aid and performs rest of task independently or with minimal assistance, no prompting for sequencing
Easier: Open the band-aid or help the process (start it until manageable by child, such as peeling the bandaid pieces a tiny bit apart and child takes over). Help hold the papers down so child can apply bandaid.

Imagination:
Harder: Do not give the child a sample, fewer prompts, encourage playing pretend
Easier: Role model playing pretend yourself only, give child sample

SKILLS worked on with animal band-aid activity:

• Cutting
• Fine motor manipulation (opening and placing bandaid)
• Visuospatial organization (placing pieces back together)
• Imagination/creativity/flexibility (understanding concept via drama/pretend/silliness)
• Life skill (manipulating band-aid)
• Cognition/Problem-solving (figuring out how to use the band-aid and put it all together)

Notes:
1. Be silly/dramatic. Children with mental rigidity can handle this sort of task as it’s concrete enough to make sense, but the imaginative creative piece is helped by silliness. “Oh nooooo our poor dinosaur!! I hope we can fix him!!!”

2. KIDS LOVE BANDAIDS. I didn’t have any cool ones, but that would help even more. If you have more than one type, let them choose. Even children resistant to cutting/directions may complete this task if they see a band-aid is involved!