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From Surviving to Thriving: Fall 2020

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Number of Views 2,417

by Jenna Zadaka (Basman)

Many therapists are starting to feel the back-to-work jitters as the start of school year approaches. On top of that, the feelings of anxiety and overwhelm are intensified due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has altered everyday life in many ways.  Isolation during quarantine, grieving over a loved one, and the economic crisis have exacerbated our intense emotions and revealed a host of vulnerabilities. During this global climate of uncertainty, therapists are balancing many roles. We are serving our clients, caring for children who are out of school, and  sharing close quarters with our spouse or other family members. Managing professional and personal responsibilities in a time of panic, fear, and the unknown, can seem daunting.

 

Here’s a compilation of suggestions for you that just take five minutes or less of your time, yet have the potency to transform your entire day. As an alternative to looking at the following
suggestions as “coping strategies”, let’s reframe our thinking to view them as “thriving
strategies”, because we do not want to just get by in our careers and life , but we want to shine
and thrive.

 

#1: BE INTENTIONAL

Our daily conditions, interactions, and exposure influence our reactivity. To some extent we can protect our emotional state and conserve our energy by monitoring the people and information that we are exposed to in the course of a day. So before reading a news article, scrolling on social media, or reading the news (again,) take a minute or less to check in and ask yourself, “Will this make me feel regretful, sad, and anxious, or will I be better off from this?” If a friend or colleague is calling, ask yourself, “Will talking to this person make me feel more depleted, or give me more energy and hope?” This intentionality and self-awareness will allow us to preserve our emotional energy and give to our students.

#2: LET GO

Many of us are the TYPE-A therapists. We love checking off our To Do Lists, color coding schedules, analyzing our data, and striving for our lives to be perfectly in order. We love being in control. The reality is, the amount of control we actually have is minuscule. Worrying about
the future, trying to control our client’s and colleagues, and needing to know constantly how the events of the world are playing out and affecting us, are only going to add to our stress and anxiety. Rather, let’s practice letting go. Give ourselves permission to not know, to be in the dark and sit with uncomfortable feelings without trying to control or change them. Breath out.. and allow your exhale to extract anything that is beyond your power. Anytime you feel like you are getting carried away with intense feelings, use the mantra, “I choose to focus on what I can control, and release what I cannot control.” Whether you release to a higher power, the universe, or just beyond you, is up to you. Post your mantra in your office, say it to yourself, sing it, whatever you need to do to remind yourself of this very important truth of life.

#3: PAUSE AND SOFTEN

Committing to a mindfulness practice helps ground you to the present moment and anchor you from getting carried away with worries and overwhelm. Whether it be practicing a breathing technique to re-center or engaging in a movement practice such as yoga, commit to incorporating moments of calm and centering throughout your day. This will allow you to activate your Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)- the digest and rest system that helps conserve the body’s energy and brings your body into Shabbat/rest mode. The PNS allows your body to stay healthier, calmer, and remain less susceptible to illness and disease. In appropriate intervals, take five minutes for this three step process: First, ask yourself, “Is my breath shallow?” Next, deepen the breath, focusing on lengthening the exhale. Finally, find the tension in your body, whether it be crunched shoulders, gripping in the fingers, butterflies in the belly, etc., and soften. Give yourself constant reminders to soften. If you’re working at a computer, plant both feet on the floor, sink into the chair, and ground into your space. Roll the shoulders back, lengthen the spine, melt the furrow between your eyes. If you are feeling anxious during the day, perhaps place your hand on your heart, stomach, or any place that your body needs some extra love and awareness, and breathe into that part of the body. 

#4: VISUALIZATION

Therapists may benefit from using a visualization practice. For an example, before meeting with a client, visualize yourself as your highest self, as the best therapist you can be: calm, centered, empathetic, skilled, receptive, etc. What does your best-therapist-self look like, feel like, sound like? A few moments to five minutes of mindfulness before meeting your client can transform your session from mediocre to great. Others may prefer a calming visualization, such as gazing at a candle or flower, or closing your eyes and picturing an ocean in your mind’s eye. The power of visualization can transform our day in a matter of minutes. 

#5: HARNESS THE POWER OF 5 MINUTES

While moving through the work day, it is easy to roll from task to task without stopping. When you find yourself between meetings, clients, or duties, instead of resorting right to a habit such as checking emails, scrolling, or reading headings, use those precious 5 minutes as REPLENISHING and REJUVENATION periods. Those 5 minutes can end up giving you a burst of energy that will allow you to thrive in your day. When feeling a storm of overwhelm, perhaps set yourself up in restorative pose, such as a wide-legged child’s pose with your forehead pressed to the ground, or place your hands at heart center and circle the breath in and around the heart. When you need energy, enter into a forward fold, generously bending the knees and dipping the crown of the head towards the ground and deepening your breath. Especially for therapists that are working from home, use the new work circumstance as an added bonus to take 5-minute yoga breaks near the computer and you will come out of each posture feeling energized and prepared for the next task! 

At the end of the work day, rather than thinking about how much you didn’t accomplish or still need to do – give yourself a 5-minute praise! Share your moments of celebration and accomplishments, whether it be writing them down, telling a friend, or simply saying it aloud to yourself. It’s easy to notice all of the things you are doing wrong or have not yet accomplished, but instead, give yourself a burst of kindness by noticing all of the things you are doing right! By using those 5 minutes to value and celebrate ourselves, we will be more empowered and refreshed. 

#6: Meditation Apps to help guide you:

Care for Coronavirus Anxiety 

Calm: Daily Meditations, body scans, and sleep stories

HeadSpace App

Shine App: Meditations

Thank you Jenna for this powerful information!

More about the author:  Jenna Zadaka (Basman) is a Speech-Language Pathologist at Minneapolis Public Schools and works as an Aphasia communication group facilitator at MnCAN.  She is a certified yoga instructor and teachers yoga, mindfulness, and Jewish mysticism to her community and beyond.  She lives with her husband and two small children.  See her website and contact her at breathandsoul.net.

 

Beat the Work Burnout in COVID Quarantine

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Number of Views 1,916

Monday’s can be tough in the best of times. 

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Here is how you can 👊 Beat the Burnout and have a great week ahead:

1.  Be realistic-  Lots of what is happening now is out of our hands.  No matter how organized we are lots of setbacks are popping up.  Let’s be realistic about the situation while recognizing how hard we are working.  You are amazing!2.  Cut out background noise- It can be stressful ensuring that our environment is always quiet and professional.  Take a look at krisp.ai to see how this app can help make your background environment blessedly silent.

3.  Be firm about cancellations- Clients are often late or AWOL when scheduled sessions begin.  Use gentle but firm language to remind them about your cancellation policy.  Make statements like “if _____ misses the 4:30 session again we may need to work on rescheduling him.”  For clients that have requested services but  are consistently unresponsive it may be best to put the ball in their court. Say “therapy seems to be on a pause right now.  I’m available for services when you are ready to schedule again.”

4.  Place fresh flowers on your desk or move your desk to a window.  Make sure to enjoy the beauty of spring🌸🌸🌸

5.  Take micro-breaks as needed- Make sure to give your eyes and brain a break between sessions. Close your eyes and breath, take a drink, or look out of the window.  Resist the urge to leave your office if your will find yourself inundated with requests, kids, and kvetches.  That will not help you feel ready for your next session.

6.  Get fresh therapy materials and techniques- Using new therapy materials will help boost your morale. The multi-sensory course is full of new techniques and therapy materials for immediate use.  You can save 20% on any of our courses with code ‘beattheburnout’ this week only!

7.  Help a Colleague- What therapy materials are working really well for you in teletherapy?  Please fill in the anonymous survey so we can share it with over 1,000 other therapists.

 

Lean-In: Tips for Teletherapy by Miriam Manela OT, R/L

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Number of Views 2,116

Miriam Manela from the Thrive Group in Passaic, NJ joins us to share some tele-therapy tips!

  1. Start with a check in with the child

This helps with the transition to therapy and helps strengthen rapport. In the traditional office setting, we have a few transitional moments when the client takes their coat off and gets ready to work.  In the online setting we need to be mindful to take a few moments to check in with                                        child.

Take this time to ask “what were you doing” and to prepare them for the session “here’s                                          what we will be doing now!”

 

 2. Body Language Matters: Therapeutic Use of Self

Use your body and affect to show your client that you are involved and interested.  Use an open posture with open  arms.  Lean-in towards the screen to show extra interest.

 

       3. Start with Familiar activities

Start sessions with familiar activities to ease the transition.  Be mindful to give simple and clear instructions for new activities so clients don’t feel too overwhelmed.

4.  Have clients use household items in sessions

You can ask clients to gather some relevant household materials to use in their sessions.  These may be crayons, a bouncing ball, or another item.  Give them time in advance to collect the items and be understanding if they don’t have all of the items that you are requesting.

 

 

 5. Be the Brightness in their day

Everybody could use some extra sparkle and warmth right now. Start the session with a smile. Be the brightness in their day by showing encouragement and verbal support to the client and family.  Take the time to let their parent/caregiver know how well they are doing https://libido-de.com/levitra-…n-10-mg/! Focus  on the positive strengths that each unique client possesses.

 

To learn more about Miriam Manela and The Thrive Group click here.

Ready to get started with tele-therapy:

Learn about 5 SMART Tools you can use in your teletherapy sessions by clicking here.

Improvisational Acting is the Art of Making Stuff Up!

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Number of Views 3,259

Remember those crazy camp skits when the actors made up their lines on the spot?? Bring some of that high-energy awesomeness to your speech therapy sessions.  Read more to find out how!

Improv actors need lots of skills to pull their shtick off.  Their lines need to be in-context and on-target with a real focus on the actions and lines of the actors around them.

In a 2015 Tedx Talk with over 138,000 views, Jennifer Hunter conveys to her audience that improv acting is similar to real-life interactions in many ways.  Hunter describes it as an “in the moment response to the stimulus of the environment and inner feelings https://libido-de.com/levitra-…n-10-mg/.”

This makes it a great therapeutic activity  for students with autism.

Just last year, The ASHA Leader highlighted a week-long-camp based in University of Indiana called ‘Camp Yes And.‘  An interdisciplinary team comprised of psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, and social workers joined in the hopes of fostering change in youth with autism.

I googled the words ‘Yes, And’ discovered that it is a commonly-used-phrase in improv skits.  ‘Yes’ is a statement of agreement with what the previous speaker has said and ‘And‘ enables you to build and add to their statement.

Take a look at this video series pictured below that will get you familiar with the concept of ‘Yes And’ and lots of other similar improv activities to use in class.

Lacy Alana has developed a curriculum called ‘Improv for Autism’.  You can explore her website by clicking here.

We are excited to be hosting Lacy Live via webinar in October. It is a free event so click here to join now!

 

 

Functional Grasps and Using Fingers

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Number of Views 2,272

Welcome back! This week we move on to the development of grasps that are more functional, meaning that they allow us to do specific tasks with more efficiency and skill, such as holding a pencil and writing. Also, we’ll touch on some of what kids’ fingers need to do to help them hold their pencils and things.

As babies develop, you will see them begin to use the pincer grasp. A pincer grip is the use of an index finger and thumb to pick up, hold, and release an object. This is a more precise and refined grip than the palmar grasp or cylindrical grasp. Although you probably hold an object with your thumb and index finger opposing each other, a child will initially use their thumb and the side of their index finger.

It is important for a child to develop this grasp as it is used for functional activities such as opening or closing buttons, zippers, laces, early handwriting, and scissor skills. Children will need to have mastered the pincer grasp to properly grip a pencil or pair of scissors.

When working with a child who is developing the pincer grasp, you want to encourage him to engage in fun activities that help develop and refine the pincer grip. Here’s a good list of ideas for activities:

  • Using tweezers to pick up objects and dropping them into containers
  • Threading beads
  • Play-dough – pinching, squeezing, patting, poking and pulling it
  • Pulling toys using a string
  • Lacing and sewing boards
  • Picking up small objects such as rice, beads, marbles, raisins and lentils between the thumb and forefinger and placing them into containers
  • Tearing paper into strips
  • Peeling off small stickers to make into a picture
  • Turning pages in a book
  • Making paper chains
  • ‘Fuzzy Felt’
  • Playing games with clothes pegs
  • Making pipe cleaners into shapes, objects, or animals
  • Popping bubble wrap

Let’s move to another developmental milestone which is important for young children as they use their hands more functionality. Finger isolation refers to the ability to point with one, specific finger at a time. This is important for your child to be able to do as it helps with the development of more refined grasps such as the pincer grasp and pencil grip, and will aid them with functional activities such as handwriting, using scissors, opening and closing buttons, using zippers and laces, and using a knife and fork.

There are a bunch of good activities you can do with children to help promote finger isolation:

  • Drawing in shaving foam or whipped cream with a finger
  • Flicking a ping-pong ball or cotton wool ball using fingers
  • Playing with finger puppets
  • Finger rhymes such as ‘Round and round the garden like a teddy bear’ or ‘Eensy weensy spider’
  • Using a typewriter, keyboard or piano
  • Pressing beads or poking holes into Play-dough using each finger in turn
  • Dialing the numbers of a toy telephone

One more important skill for today: Hand arches. The development of arches in the hand is essential for fine manipulation. Arches – the way the fingers are shaped while while holding objects such as a pencil, allow for controlled pressure and skilled movements of the fingers. They also help the hand to hold objects with sufficient strength. If these arches are not developed appropriately, your child may experience difficulties with gripping and using tools such as a knife and fork, pencils and scissors.

Activities to help develop hand arches include:

  • Shaking dice using a cupped hand
  • Cutting Play-dough using a knife or pizza slice
  • Writing with chalk on a chalkboard using all four fingertips and the thumb
  • Using a dressmaker’s wheel to make dotted lines on paper or card
  • Using a turkey baster to blow ping-pong balls or cotton wool balls across a table
  • Using Play-dough to make balls and press them into the palm of the hand
  • Using tweezers or tongs to pick up small objects
  • Playing games with pegs
  • Any activity with buttons, coins or small objects
  • Card games
  • Squeezing games using sponges, bubble wrap, and Play-dough.

That’s it for now. After Pesach we will dive into a treatment planning discussion, to help put some of the knowledge and milestones we discussed into treatment sessions that help kids develop good handwriting.

-Miriam

Development of Primitive Grasps

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Number of Views 5,311

Hey OTs (and anyone else interested in helping kids with handwriting!)

Let’s spend some time this week discussing the development of grasps, which are simply the ways we hold things in our hands. One of the first stages of a child’s development is the use of a palmar grasp, and this grasp is a building block for all other fine motor skills that come later. Also important at this stage is a baby’s ability to release from the palmar grasp.

In a palmar grasp, babies hold on object that is in their palm by wrapping their fingers down around it, without using their thumb. It is interesting to observe that a baby may crudely grasp a small object using his palm and all four fingers, even though the object could be grasped more efficiently with just two fingers or a finger and his palm.

Sometimes a baby will be delayed in acquiring this grasp, or may have difficulty keeping object in his hand. Some activities to help promote gross grasp, grasp strength, and release include squeezing water from sponges at bath time, squeezing play-dough, scrunching up paper into balls, stacking blocks on top of one another, or throwing objects.

One interesting thing about the palmar grasp is that it’s actually a reflex – babies will close their hand on something placed in their palm reflexively. You might have noticed that this grasp is pretty strong, and babies can often support their own weight using this grasp. Just be careful – a baby can release suddenly without any reason! Don’t you love when a baby grasps your index finger with his palm and four fingers? It’s one of the cutest things a baby will do!

The palmar grasp is referred to as a crude grasp, and after this stage babies begin to develop more functional grasps, such as a cylindrical grasp, which begins to involve the movement of the wrist. This grasp is also called the barrel grasp, because it looks like the child’s fingers are in the shape of a barrel around whatever she is grasping.

In this grasp, a child can manipulate the object she is holding by using gross arm movements, but also slightly finer movement with the wrist. Little kids will often hold their crayons this way as they begin coloring and doodling. If you try writing with this grasp you will see that it doesn’t produce very legible writing, and your arm, wrist, and hand will tire quickly. Still, this grasp is an improvement over the reflexive, primitive palmar grasp, and it’s important that babies progress to more and more functional grasps.

If a child needs help developing a strong cylindrical grasp you may want to try one these activities which will help develop this grasp:

  • Pushing or pulling toys
  • ‘Row, row, row your boat’ – holding a broom stick
  • Tug-of-war
  • Tipping water from a cup or beaker, or pouring from one container into another
  • Holding onto the rope of a swing
  • Holding onto the handles of a tricycle or pedal car

The good news is that these are fun for kids! Come back next week for more on grasps, and tips to help children develop their grasps and handwriting.

-Miriam

Child Development and Handwriting

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Number of Views 1,500

So, you spend your days helping children with their handwriting… Did you ever wonder if you were really making a major difference to the children that you work with? (You don’t have to admit it.) The good news is that you are.

Research shows that there is a fundamental correlation between motor and cognitive development. Specifically, there are relationships between fine motor skills and higher order cognitive skills. Our job as OTs is to facilitate fine motor development for better participation in school. But we do that we are also facilitating improvement in the students’ cognitive abilities, which also affects success in school.

How is this so? Motor activities help support and stimulate brain development. Think about child development through a child’s first year. All of his development is through motor and sensory exploration, which is why every object – too small, entirely disgusting, etc. – ends up in your baby’s mouth! Babies are learning, developing understanding of their worlds, by moving, touching, and tasting lekarna-slovenija.com. Going through these developmental stages in the beginning of a baby’s life directly impacts brain and cognitive development.

Since the natural sequence of development originates from motor and sensory exploration, let’s talk about fine motor skills development through infancy. Fine motor skills refer to the small movements of the hands, wrists, fingers, feet, toes, lips, and tongue. These actions involve the movement of small muscles in the body. These small muscles control smaller actions such as grasping an object.

Understanding when skills are supposed to emerge helps us to get a better understanding of proper age level expectations and understand the delays and functioning levels of our students. This understanding helps us to plan treatments that stimulate and facilitate proper motor and sensory experiences and development for skill attainment in students. This table is a timeline of significant fine motor milestones:

Newborns Their tiny hands are closed and all grasping is reflexive (Darwinian reflex) which is integrated by 2-3 months.
Two weeks These little guys will flail at objects.
Eight weeks Babies discover their hands.
2-4 months Around this time, they start developing eye-hand coordination skills. This refers to the ability to grasp and touch an object while looking at it. They develop this through a good deal of trial and error.
4-5 months A baby can grasp an object that she sees within reach.
6 months Now babies can hold and bang objects together.
12 months Around this time, babies learn to use a pincer grasp, meaning they can hold objects between the thumb and index finger. This gives the baby a better ability to hold and move objects and to intentionally drop them.
One year These big (kind of) kids can hold, drop, stack, and nest objects
Toddler Begin to draw (includes shapes in pictures), play with blocks, fold paper and string large beads.
Preschool Fine motor development is varied in this age group.
School Age By age five, a student can draw a person, cut, paste, draw, fasten buttons, tie laces, and right- or left-handedness is established. Eye-hand coordination is mastered between the ages of 6-12.

The progression of fine motor skills is a key component to skill acquisition. Come back next week, when we will begin to discuss activities and ideas to facilitate the development of each stage, by focusing on the development of grasps.

 

-Miriam

We’ve added the Worksheets feature:)

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Number of Views 1,530

How nice would it be if your speech therapy worksheets had a frum theme?

We decided to launch for Pesach 2018.

We created 2 compare and contrast sheets, 1 categories sheet, and 2 auditory memory/following directions sheet.

They can be downloaded free at theraschmooze.com/worksheets

Future topics will include:

Articulation

Reading/Listening Comprehension

‘Wh’ Questions

and more!

What else would you like to see in our Lag B’omer set?

The Handwriting “Mess”

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Number of Views 1,328

Hi! My name is Miriam Gewirtz and I am a school-based OT working in elementary and middle schools. I have a lot of great ideas and tips I’ve come across over the years, and I look forward to sharing them with you each week.

Did you know that 90% of elementary school teachers say they feel unprepared to teach handwriting? This should ring true to OTs working in schools. If schools provide any handwriting instruction past kindergarten, it stops by the time students are in third grade. This means that OTs are the ones in our schools who have the expertise and know-how to teach students to write legibly, and this has become one of the main school-based goals that occupational therapists address.

Handwriting legibility and speed of writing is an important skill for students. Students are expected to fill out worksheets, tests, and take notes, usually by hand. If handwriting is a source of frustration or difficulty, the actual learning in school becomes even more challenging for students. In fact, some students have so much trouble with handwriting that they are told to type instead, to avoid the distraction that handwriting is for them (and their teachers who must decipher it!)

Interestingly enough, research shows that the actual act of writing helps in the learning process. This is because the activity of writing activates specific pathways in the brain. (Let’s talk more on this in a future post about writing vs. typing for students with handwriting difficulties.)

First, though, let’s spend some time talking about handwriting basics – the things that work in kids who write legibly and create the underlying deficiencies that lead to poor handwriting in others. Some topics I will address will be about how handwriting difficulties can be attributed to poor fine motor skills, poor visual perceptual skills, or poor visual motor skills.

Stay tuned for more each week!

-Miriam