otexchange.com

I totally just spent like an hour+ on OTExchange.com…you have to sign up to become a member but it's worth it! 🙂 A lot of school-based OTs on there (Tonya, I saw one of your comments! 🙂 )

Okay….now that I just got a lot of great information for general school purposes, but have done nothing specific for MY job, I better get back to work for a while!! My daily schedule these days looks like this: Get up at 6. Leave by 6:45am (because I got everything ready the night before). Get to school by 7:30am. See kids direct in pull-out, push-in,and do lots of consult (I am still shadowing the OT whose caseload I am inheriting by the way). Leave by 4pm. Go to Pilates/exercise, come home, shower, prepare for next day (clothes, food), and then do 1-2 hours of paperwork stuff. That will probably increase exponentially once I am no longer shadowing. 🙂 Then try to go to bed early! I am exhausted!

So tonight I wasted a lot of time on OTexchange – although it was useful stuff – so I better stop. notice I said that a paragraph ago but then went on to blabber. Oh well.

By the way, I got a message from a blog reader/now FB friend/OT student, Meredith, who said her classmate found my blog and liked it, then saw Meredith's blog on the sidebar! Small world! Thanks Meredith's classmate for liking my blog!!

So….two tiny tiny things I've seen recently…..AS ALWAYS DO ANYTHING I MENTION AT YOUR OWN RISK….I'm NOT recommending you try anything I say! Just sharing interesting/cool things! (IMHO that is). 🙂

1) Putting a small (2 inches??) bit of aquarium tubing on the end of a pencil to serve as a chewie for kids with oral motor needs. It's not quite as obvious as other things like “chewelry”. I have not tried this myself and I would want to research carefully first to make sure the tubing was safe to chew on (I think it is?)  and B) that the child was at no risk of choking on it.

2) An OT recommended that when using the tiny piece of paper towel (we're talking like an inch square) to wipe off the chalkboard slate used in the Handwriting without Tears program, she has the child raise the hand with the towel and then crumple it up using JUST that one hand in the air, to strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hand/promote in-hand manipulation, instead of using both hands to crumple it up. This is surprisingly hard for some kids!

OKAY ENOUGH PROCRASTINATION….that was two tiny bones….use at your own risk!
KD