7
Jan
2013
Volunteering in the NICU :)
Every Sunday afternoon I have my volunteer shift in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) pronounced NICK-U. Today I was somewhat of a pacifier fairy…flitting from crib to crib replacing pacifiers. Almost every shift I learn new techniques or new lingo or something about working with the babies. I definitely appreciate my occupational therapy background while volunteering. It gives me a really helpful understanding of the importance of the vestibular, proprioceptive, and tactile systems of these babies among other things.
Some of the medications that the “drug babies” take while weaning can cause hypertonicity, meaning basically that their limbs can feel rigid in certain positions, and can even kind of “tremor” when extended. I recently realized that when trying to transfer a sleeping drug baby from my lap to their bed, that if their legs are allowed to dangle at all, it can lead to a tremor and the baby can wake up just from that. (It obviously depends on the baby’s level of hypertonicity). So if I keep the baby’s legs contained and slightly flexed while transferring the baby, it prevents the tremor and the baby is more likely to stay asleep. Considering how incredibly important sleep is to a sick baby, a little realization like that can be really helpful in allowing a baby more uninterrupted sleep!
I recently got to hold a “typical” baby at a friend’s house – he was so calm and quiet and obviously unconnected to any tubes or monitors. It was insane how easy he was! When all the babies I ever get to hold are in an intensive care unit, it definitely gives me a skewed sense of what “normal” is!
I’ve been on break two weeks. I spent a week in Maui with family and this second week doing a combination of relaxation and some preparatory work.
Tomorrow it’s back to work and this week I plan to do my first app review of Dexteria.
By the way – Handwriting Without Tears updated their Wet-Dry-Try app and it now has an “Easy” Setting you can set. I now recommend their app because of that change. 🙂 It was too frustrating and hard for the vast majority of my kids before, but now it’s doable with that setting.
By the way – in the year 2012 I wrote over 300 posts! That’s more than I’ve written since 2008, when I wrote over 600! I’m insane. But you all know that already. 🙂
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none
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
30
Dec
2012
Army OT guy, great article
http://armyotguy.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-bit-on-army-ot-and-me.html
Go to that link to read the details which will link you to the Washington Post article.
I presented with Erik (Army OT guy) this past year and we will be presenting again together (along with several other awesome social media peeps) and I would like to say that yes, he is as amazing as this article makes it sound!
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none
30
Dec
2012
The Grinch That Stole Blogmas….
Hoo-ha, I am SO SUPER CLEVER. Look at that title. Amazing.
Just kidding, I’m stupid. Or rather,as my twin sister likes to remind me, I’m a “dumblebee” (you have to pronounce it like bumble).
With the holidays has come chaos, and poor grammar, but I think this upcoming week (I have one more week off) will bring blog magic as I catch up on reviews etc.
Recent question asked by a sophomore in college who wants to go into OT school: “Can I start setting up volunteer/internship/observation experiences now for my graduate school application, or is it too early?”
Answer: It’s not too early to START, but it’s way too early to FINISH. If you want to start getting in your hours and experiences, GO FOR IT…the earlier the better, for your application, to show a long history. But if you think you can whip them all out soon and get it over with…. it will not look good.
So start accumulating experiences…just don’t stop 🙂
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none
21
Dec
2012
We are officially on break…
…one of the many perks of being in the school system…not that I get paid diring it but nice to have a break.
I included a picture of an attempted glitter manicure…and a page of ginger bread accoutrements that one of my first graders was expected to cut out…yikes!!!
Also a picture of a recent sunrise I woke up to 🙂 and finally a picture from a recent late night of work at one of my schools…we ordered in some minestrone soup and one of the teachers lit a candle which made me laugh. 🙂
It was sweet how many presents I got addressed to miss awesomeness…Always makes me smile. Probably about 10 percent of my kids give me small gifts for the holidays which are of course appreciated but not expected or necessary. I think Starbucks gift cards are definitely the most common 🙂 I enjoy buying my friends drinks!
I am hoping that this next two weeks will allow me to catch up on some reviews!! I have tried out some new apps enough by the makers of dexteria to have pros and cons of each. And taught several kids how to tie their shoes using tying is a snap laces. 🙂
Well typing all of this on my phone is tough so I guess I’ll stop now. Thanks for the kind comments, emails, texts, Facebook messages, etc on my sweet black cat. I am hoping this next two weeks will be both productive and restful and healing!!
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none
19
Dec
2012
My kids..
http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/17/my-view-above-all-teachers-are-in-it-for-the-kids/?hpt=hp_bn1
I read this article and how teachers call their students “my kids”.
Well I’m obviously an OT working in elementary schools and not a teacher, but same story. I ALWAYS refer to them as “my kids” ie “Oh my kids would love this” or “I am buying this for my kids” ….that’s how I see them. Sometimes I forget what that sounds like to a stranger and then they ask, oh, how old are your kids? (assuming I am the mom). Then I am like Oh, no, sorry, I mean the kids I work with.
But to me? They’re just my kids. 🙂
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 2
17
Dec
2012
I don't even know what to call this…
Awkward photos.
I know I’ve blogged about this before but it’s so weird I have to blog about it again because it keeps swimming in my brain, trying to figure out why.
The left is a picture of a pencil grip with a pipe cleaner threaded through it and a cocktail sword (which has been mostly broken off) on it too.
For whatever reason my kids are fascinated by it. And I have several kids who tend to fist their non-dominant hand while writing, and holding this object makes them happy. Don’t ask me why.
Cats are people too
Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none