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Starfish Updates
Blogs: Here are some of our most recent and popular blog posts from this last month.
OT Month: To commemorate OT month we have created handouts for people to use and share. Please let us know if you would like the PDF copy of the handouts.
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Just For Fun
 Your Therapy Source
Your Therapy Source always has great ideas for activities with kids.
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Speech and Language Corner
Playing With Words 365 has some great posts on assisting with Speech and Language Development. Each month we will provide you with some of their current posts.
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Welcome back! We are excited to share some information about Occupational Therapy (OT) with you as we celebrate OT month! Enjoy!
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Childhood Occupations
 As Occupational Therapy refers to how one occupies their time, it is a profession that believes in daily participation in occupational routines. As defined by the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework, a child participates in the following occupations including Activities of Daily Living, Rest and Sleep, Education, Play and Social Participation. Each occupation is taken into consideration during your child's treatment and as such obtaining an understanding of these areas will contribute to the families ability to work in collaboration with the OT and develop the ability to transfer skills into the child's daily routine to foster independence. The following descriptions are taken from the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework.
Activities of Daily Living: Activities that are oriented toward taking care of one's own body. These activities are, "fundamental to living in a social world; they enable basic survival and well being." They include:
- Bathing/Showering: obtaining/using supplies, maintaining positioning, transferring to and from bathing position
- Bowel/Bladder Management & Toilet Hygiene: intentional control, obtaining/using supplies, clothing management, transferring on/off the toilet
- Dressing: selecting appropriate clothing, obtaining clothing from a storage area, dressing/undressing in a sequential pattern
- Eating: the ability to keep and manipulate food or fluid in the mouth/swallow
- Feeding: the process of setting up, arranging and bringing food/fluid to the mouth
- Functional Mobility: moving from one position in space to another during performance of everyday activities
- Personal Hygiene/Grooming: obtaining and using supplies to brush hair, groom nails, wash hands, clean mouth etc
Rest and Sleep: Including activities related to obtaining restorative rest and sleep that supports healthy active engagement in other areas of occupation.
- Rest: quiet and effortless actions that interrupt physical and mental activity including identifying need to relax to restore energy, calm and renew interest in engagement
- Sleep: a series of activities resulting in going to sleep, staying asleep
- Sleep preparation: engaging in routines that prepare the self for comfortable rest including grooming, reading, setting an alarm etc.
Education: Includes activities needed for learning and participating in the environment.
- Formal educational participation: including categories of academic classes, nonacademic (e.g. recess), extracurricular (e.g. sports)
- Informal personal education participation: participating in classes, programs, and activities that provide instruction/training in identified areas of interest
Play: A spontaneous or organized activity that provides enjoyment, entertainment, amusement or diversion.
- Play Exploration: identifying appropriate play activities, which can include exploration play, practice play, pretend play, games with rules, constructive play and symbolic play
- Play Participation: participating in play maintaining a balance of play with other areas of occupation; and obtaining using and maintaining toys, equipment, and supplies appropriately
Social Participation: Organized patterns of behavior that are characteristic and expected of an individual or given position within a social system.
- Community: engaging in activities that result in successful interaction at the community level (i.e. neighborhood, organization, work, school)
- Family: engaging in successful interactions in specific required and/or desired family roles
- Peer, Friend: engaging at different levels of intimacy
Reference: Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain & Process 2nd Edition. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy. Novemeber/December 2008, 62:6, pg. 631-633.
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Occupational Therapy Helps Individuals Live Life to it's Fullest!
 When I meet new people and explain, "I am an Occupational Therapist" the most common response I receive is, "so you help people find jobs." Then I tell them I work with children and the response tends to be a look of total confusion. So what does Occupational Therapy mean?
To find the answer to simply ask yourself, how do I occupy my time? Or how does my child occupy their time?
A child's daily routine will most likely involve play, school, self-care (dressing, eating), sleep and a child's social interactions in the home, school and community.
Occupational therapy enables people of all ages live life to its fullest by helping them promote health, prevent or live better with injury, illness, or disability. It is a practice deeply rooted in science and is evidence-based, meaning that the plan designed for each individual is supported by data, experience, and "best practices" that have been developed and proven over time.
Occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants focus on "doing" whatever occupations or activities are meaningful to the individual and when working with children what is meaningful to the family since family is at the core of a child's daily life. It is occupational therapy's purpose to get beyond problems to the solutions that assure living life to its fullest. These solutions may be adaptations for how to do a task, changes to the surroundings, or helping individuals to alter their own behaviors.
When working with an occupational therapy practitioner, strategies and modifications are customized for each individual to resolve problems, improve function, and support everyday living activities. The goal is to maximize potential. Through these therapeutic approaches, occupational therapy helps individuals design their lives, develop needed skills, adjust their environments (e,g., home, school, or community) and build health-promoting habits and routines that will allow them to thrive.
By taking the full picture into account-a person's psychological, physical, emotional, and social makeup as well as their environment-occupational therapy assists clients to do the following:
- Achieve goals
- Function at the highest possible level
- Concentrate on what matters most to them
- Maintain or rebuild their independence
- Participate in daily activities that they need or want to do.
Founded in 1917, the American Occupational Therapy Association(AOTA) represents the interests and concerns of more than 140,000 occupational therapists, assistants and students nationwide. The Association educates the public and advances the profession of occupational therapy by providing resources, setting standards including accreditations and serving as an advocate to improve health care. Based in Bethesda, Md., AOTA's major programs and activities are directed toward promoting the professional development of its members and assuring consumer access to quality services so patients can maximize their individual potential. For more information, go to the website.
Test used with permission of The American Occupational Therapy Association: http://www.promoteot.org/AI_OTM-link03.html
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Thank you for reading, have a great month! See you again soon!
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Sincerely,
Your Friends at
Starfish Therapies
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