Hello Friends!
2013 is now upon us! In this new year, we are planning updates to the content we bring to you in our monthly newsletter and online. You can now comment and interact with other readers through our new blog site at http://southpawenterprises.blogspot.com/. We hope that readers will be able to share their experiences with each other.
Would you like to see your clinic featured in Pawprint? If so, please send us a couple of paragraphs telling us about your clinic along with some photos we can share if your clinic is chosen. Email your submissions here. We'd love to see your clinics and hear from you!
We'll also be introducing many new products, including more from our Sens-Aura Multi-Sensory Experience™ line, all of which will feature the continued quality and innovation you are accustomed to getting from Southpaw Enterprises.
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The Possibilities are Endless...With a Blanket and Pillow
Deanna Macioce, MS, OTR/L
 Who isn't looking for some new and exciting treatment activities and ideas for a sensory diet? It feels as if we are always being challenged to keep things fun and exciting. And with a quick scan around our house, many times we overlook the things staring us right in our face. So, let's pull out those blankets and pillows and see what fun we can have, while working on some key areas. Climbing aboard the Magic Carpet children can work on core stability in the upright sitting position while receiving some vestibular input. This is also a great way to work on dynamic sitting balance. Children can also lay on their bellies working on head and neck extension, or use a pillow for additional support. And if you want to provide some proprioceptive input, have children pull peers for a little bit of heavy work. The possibilities are endless when it comes to designing obstacle courses with both blankets and pillows. Blankets can be rolled up to be logs or snakes to jump over working on coordination and propriocpetive input. Or by placing some weighted objects on a blanket, children can pull along their treasure (for a bit of heavy work and shoulder/core strengthening) to their hide out. Using chairs or other pieces of furniture it is easy to cover them to make a tunnel that children have to crawl through. Test their motor planning skill by having them have to get trough the tunnel in different ways, such as "coming through so that their feet exit first". Pillows can be used as rocks or lilypads to walk on or over working on balance and coordination. Pile up a mountain of blankets and pillows to crawl or bear walk over, and increase the challenge by having them belly crawl. What a fun way to work on trunk stability and bilateral coordination with no expensive piece of equipment. Read the rest of this article and join the discussion here... |
| Southpaw Employee Spotlight |
 Southpaw's featured employee this month is Phillip Rowland. Phillip has been working in production at Southpaw for 24 years this July. He currently puts edge stripping on all of our swings, along with making rope plugs and helping in the sewing department. You can also see Phillip in our catalog modeling products such as the trike he is pictured on to the left. Phillip enjoys working in the sewing department the most, and his favorite Southpaw product is the Adult Linear Glider. In his spare time, Phillip likes to ride his bicycle, often riding 50 to 70 miles at a time. Phillip is often described as the hardest working employee at Southpaw, and we are very fortunate to have him as a valuable member of our team!
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