Occupational Therapy

Leave a comment Posted on August 26, 2015August 25, 2015 Autism

“Camp WindSpark” – a fantastic OT opportunity for the autism community.

Camp WindSpark Flyer

My name is Marielise Jacobs. I am a pediatric Occupational Therapist. I am contacting you in hopes that you will help me to spread the word on a day camp program called “Camp WindSpark” that I’ve organized to happen over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 5-7. I have attached a flyer for you to review and hopefully share with others who may be interested. Please e-mail or call me if I can answer any questions you might have.

The camp was created as an opportunity for children/youth to be exposed to a fun, positive outdoor experience and; at the same time, to learn new skills to enhance their quality of life and improve function.

Camp WindSpark is designed to provide support to families who have children with Asperger’s Syndrome and/or high functioning Autism. Camp activities will engage the kids in a way that is meaningful, while helping them to learn and practice using skills that can be challenging such as social interaction and motor coordination. Learning to windsurf requires skills such as balance, attention, and coordinating a sequence of movements. Volunteer OT staff will be assisting campers during windsurf instruction provided by Calema Windsurfing. OT staff will lead land-based games and crafts that promote sensory and social skills in a real world environment during the camp program.

Research shows that kids with Autism often have less opportunity to participate in leisure and outdoor activities.

Research has also shown that spending time outdoors is a great way to promote health. As an Occupational Therapist with a former career in outdoor programming with youth, the idea for Camp WindSpark was born. I am also a currently certified Red Cross WSI (Swim Instructor), and Aquatic Therapy and Rehab Institute certified. I believe that children with special needs often have untapped potential and that the use of outdoor activities opens their world in a wonderful way. I want to give kids an opportunity to do something that goes beyond the walls of the clinic that can help them to thrive and grow as children while improving function in their everyday lives.

Leave a comment Posted on June 22, 2015June 22, 2015 Autism

OT Research Study: Parent Wanted! Parent Strategies for Increasing Eye Contact in Children with ASD – Please help 3 OT graduates with a survey.

Autism and Eye Contact

As occupational therapy graduate students we hope to find ways to improve the quality of life of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) as well as their families. The goal of our research study is to identify methods parents have found to be the most successful for increasing their child’s eye contact and decreasing the amount of time their child spends visually perseverating (fixating on an object for an inappropriate period of time). Deficits in social communication are common in the ASD community, which can result in decreased social competence; thus, impacting the individual’s ability to use effective social strategies to interact with others, including initiating interactions, responding appropriately to others, solving conflicts, and maintaining sustained engagement in social interaction.

Children with ASD commonly have characteristic deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, nonverbal communication such as facial expression, gestures, eye contact, joint attention tasks, and rote and imaginative play, which can negatively impact their ability to orient and attend to social tasks, and engage in socializing. For many, eye contact skills are an important skill necessary for the development of social, cognitive, and language skills.

Several strategies have been found to be effective for increasing eye contact in children with ASD. Researchers have found that interventions during play, such as withholding items until the child requests them while making eye contact, reinforced the child’s behavior toward making eye contact. Strategies during play have also been used to increases eye contact in a child with ASD. These strategies include placing one’s face by a toy the child is interested in, imitating the child’s actions, or putting a preferred item out of reach and waiting for the child to make eye contact. Research has found that parents who imitated their child’s actions and used a preferred activity to engage the child, such as singing to them or wrapping them in a blanket, improved eye contact throughout the length of the parents’ interactions with their children. Other parental strategies include the use positive affect such as laughing, clapping, playful tones, and physical affection.
Through this study it is hoped that there will be a better understanding of the type of strategies (e.g., language, touch, auditory, visual-technology, object, exaggerated body placements, or other strategies) that improve eye gaze and eye contact. A benefit of this study will be to provide occupational therapists and other professionals, working with families of children with ASD, the ability to develop treatment plans according to what caregivers have found to be successful for decreasing visual perseveration and increasing eye contact.

If you or anyone you know are interested in participating in this study, please follow the link below:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ASDparentstrategies

Thank you for your time.

Laura Perez, Macy Rhea Crenshaw, Divya Sakaria

Leave a comment Posted on May 2, 2014May 2, 2014 Autism, Diet, Patient Talk

NEAT Kids – Nutrition Exercise and Therapy for children with developmental and behavioral challenges – a guest post from Jessica Tomkins

NEAT Kids

Welcome to our latest guest post in our series of autism and ASD/ASC related blog posts. Today Jessica Tomkins introduces us to a very interesting work in progress which we think many of of interested to a lot of parents with children who have been diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. Tomkins writes:

“NEAT stands for Nutrition Exercise and Therapy for children with developmental and behavioral challenges, and the mission behind NEAT Kids is to target every aspect of a child to help them reach their optimal wellness.

Everyone who is a part of NEAT Kids are big believers that it starts with proper nutrition and exercise and as a result different therapies will fall into place!

We also use the latest scientific research to help support our cause. We have an accredited Occupational Therapist, Exercise Specialist, and Human Nutritionist on board, all to make sure we are providing the finest information to our followers!

Our Facebook URL is: facebook.com/NEATKids, and the website and logo are currently in the making 🙂 ”

So watch this space for more information

5 Comments Posted on December 10, 2013February 14, 2017 Autism, Patient Talk

Autism, Exercise and Occupational Therapy – What are good types of OT for children with autism?

Swimming as OT for autism

Before I start the blog post proper I want to get something off my chest.

As readers of this blog know, our seven year old now attends a ResourceBase rather than a mainstream school to access learning. One of the key reasons from our point of view was that his old mainstream school was not able to provide him with the Occupation Therapy (OT) which, according to government and healthcare officials, he needs. The ResourceBase would be able to meet these requirements or so we were told.

Well, on Tuesday we met with his various teachers at the new school and were rather surprised to be told that he had received no formal OT that term. The reason was that even with daily phone calls from the school the relevant authorities had not provided one until that week. Even then this OT support would end with the current semester.

So not exactly what we bargained for. I have to say I’m a bit troubled that even the school have asked us to complain to the relevant local government department. Which I fear will give them more chance to prevaricate and not deliver what they have agreed to. Out of interest, do you have similar issues with statutory funding/support for children with special needs where you live? If so please add your thoughts in the comments box below.

Not to say that our son gets no OT support. The teaching staff and my wife and I provide as much as we can but none of us is an OT professional and I’m concerned our son may lose out. For John OT is particularly important because of his handwriting and concentration issues.

The main theme of this blog is not a whine, in fact. It is much more about what we can actually do with John.

While both we and the school do OT exercises such as the wheel barrow, his main love is swimming. It is great for both co-ordination and self-esteem.

Originally we just used to take him to our local pool each week or so. But when he went to his new school we decided that he would benefit from proper swimming lessons. As luck would have it, only ten minutes’ walk, from his new unit there is a swimming school which provides special needs swimming lessons. (At a discount as well). Due to his autism he has a one-to-one session rather than learning in a group situation. Which is sort of a shame but necessary in our son’s case.

Here I’d like to pay tribute to Keith, John’s teacher. Not just can he put up with our son, he demonstrates the patience of Job. Indeed they were introduced when John was having a full scale melt down but around five minutes later he was in the pool immersed (in both senses) in his lesson.

As a point of information Keith uses John’s interest in space and science fiction to provide an imaginary framework for the lessons. So a take away for other autistic parents who want their child to learn something like swimming is to use the childs special interests as a way of getting them to embrace the activity.

Obviously for any autistic child progress is not as straight forward as we would like but in eight weeks real strides have been made. He has moved from the doggy paddle to nearly being able to crawl and do the back stroke.

That being said I’m interested to know where we go from here and your advice would be much appreciated. For example I’m very interested in the following questions:-

Does your child do any sporting activity?
How do you encourage them to participate in team as well as individual sports?
What sort of OT support does your child receive?
What difference has exercise and sport made to your child?

Thanks very much in advance

PS I have to say Keith is a marvel and I have every intention of getting him a bottle of Bunderburg Rum for Christmas by way of thanks.