SEPAC Presentation By Barb Zweber Occupational Therapy New Prague - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

SEPAC Presentation

By Barb Zweber Occupational Therapy New Prague Schools November 20, 2017

OVERVIEW OF TONIGHT ❖ What is Occupational Therapy ❖ To understand parts of the sensory system ❖ Participate in sensory inventory ❖ Ways in implement sensory activities into your daily routine

Occupational Therapy

OT is a part of the educational team - Ann Johnson, Andrea Beno Our goal is to help children to prepare and perform learning and school related activities to make them successful. OT supports academic and nonacademic outcomes including development skills, math , reading writing, self regulation, recess, self help , vocation and more

Who is Eligible for OT

Birth to 21 years old services can be direct or consultative

• Must qualify for special education services as defined by Minnesota

State Guidelines

• Comprehension evaluation will be administered in all areas of

concern by a team and they will determine services needed.

• OT is a related service on the IEP - can’t stand alone and must have

another service like written expression or behavior and then OT will help support this overall education of the student

• Goal is for students to no longer need services due to great success

and independence

Sensory Intergration

Proprioceptive Vestibular

Picture from: Wilbarger, Patricia. (2006). Sensory Defensiveness: A comprehensive Treatment

• Approach. Conference manual, Toronto, ON.

• Sensations from joints and muscles
• We can always tell the position of our body,

without even looking

• Push, pull, lift, carry weighted things
• Usually is calming and focusing

PROPRIOCEPTION

■ FOUND IN THE INNER EAR ■ SENDS INFORMATION TO OUR BRAIN REGARDING:

• BALANCE
• MOVEMENT
• MUSCLE TONE

■ COORDINATES EYES, HEAD AND BODY ■CAN BE EASILY OVERSTIMULATING (car sick) ■DEEP PRESSURE CAN CALM THE SYSTEM

VESTIBULAR

SENSE

Occupational Therapist’s Role

• Empower you to be sensory investigators
• Figure out more about your child’s sensory

based needs

• Suggest regular, daily activities to attempt

to help keep your child regulated

• Work on helping the child to increase their

self awareness and adaptive response to input

Sensory Thresholds

High = more sensory input is necessary for the child to register the information or respond (responds slower, under sensitive) Low = it takes less sensory input to notice the input and/or get a response (responds quickly,

• ver sensitive)

Vision

Under sensitive

■ Seeking visually active

toys/tasks/ environments

■ Appears not to notice

what is going on around them Over sensitive

■ Dislikes bright lights ■ Covers eyes ■ Becomes upset by or

avoids visually busy environments

■ Is distracted by visual

elements of the environment (reads posters rather than attending to instruction)

Auditory System Is it Under Sensitive or Over sensitive?

Under sensitive

■ Makes noises ■ Likes music and

musical toys

■ Talks self through tasks

• r situations

■ Appears not to hear

(although no hearing deficit)

Auditory- Over sensitive

Covers ears

■ Avoids loud activities

lunchrooms, class parties

■ Distracted by noises

• thers wouldn’t notice

(background noise)

■ Making noise to drown

• ut unwanted sounds

Strategies to Help

• What your child likes and what strategies

work best for your child is a puzzle to figure out

• What is regulating for one child may be

very disorganizing for another!

Calming Power Tools

• Think about your own calming activities. What

helps you to wind down after a long day?

• Think about your own alerting activities and how

you help to wake yourself up when you feel tired.

• Think about things that are disorganizing to you?

Things that make you feel “frazzled” or make you

• mad. How do you calm down after these times?

Calming Activities: Engaging your Child

• Breathing is one of the “power regulators” and

helps our body get back to a calm state ( yoga for relaxation

• Breathing is important in our ability to pay

attention because oxygen is delivered to our brain.

• A lot of children do not breathe deeply enough to

get a lot of oxygen (possibly due to posture, anxiety, etc.)

Calming Activities: Engaging your Child

• Some breathing activity ideas:

– Playing games with straws such as blowing feathers, pom poms, and ping pong balls. *Cutting the straws in half may make it easier for your child to blow and point at a target. – Smell the flowers, blow the 40 birthday candles – Tracing your hand to breath – Using rubber tubing or long straws to blow bubbles in the bath

Calming Activities: Engaging your Child

• The Mouth is a power regulator too! This is why

we see kids like bottles and soothers and chewing/sucking on things

• Sucking input gives strong deep pressure input

to the mouth and brain

• Mouth exercise, leaning on jaw

Calming Activities: Engaging your Child

• Sucking Activities:

– Using short straws to eat snacks such as pudding, yogurt, applesauce, etc. – Sucking/chewing on special “chewlery” or special pendant around the neck – Sucking on the end of a pen or rubber end – Snack carrots, apples, pretzel

Calming Activities: Deep Pressure

• Deep pressure massage is often very calming. Also

special program with a surgical brush therapressure program

• Weighted items provide this deep pressure blankets, lap

pads, vests, snakes, etc.

• Creating a “womb like” space to retreat to is often helpful
• Slow linear rocking in a rocking chair
• Lowering your voice ME Moves
• Using a drum with rhythm may help with calming

Calming Power Tools – Environmental Considerations

• Considering the environment is often

Things to consider:

– Lighting -fluorescent lighting is “annoying” to the body, especially if there is also flickering!

• Dim the lights, use flame resistant light covers to

deflect lights, get rid of fluorescent lights, provide lamps as lighting, use natural light

Calming Power Tools – Environmental Considerations

– Visual distractions lots of stuff on the walls, on shelves, etc. is actually telling the body to pay attention and register all the stuff. Try covering bookshelves with a solid sheet to limit distractions, clean up clutter if possible, organize things into special bins for intended purpose > that way you can take out limited things at a time and teach child to clean up before taking out another bin.

• Painting rooms “cool” colours such as blue or green. (Bright

colours can be alerting)

Calming Power Tools – Environmental Considerations

– Noise Lots of noise in your home, community,

• etc. We are multi-taskers by nature!
• Turn off the TV/music, etc.
• Try soothing sounds like a table fountain, methodical

ticking sound, a rain stick, nature sounds CD, etc.

• Try out regulating music with regulating beat

(examples shown) drumming Music

• Try out noise cancelling headphones, an ipod with

favorite music, or earphones

What is Sensory Processing or Sensory Integration?

• We are able to make an “adaptive response” and keep
• ur teeter totter (our body) balanced or “regulated”
• For many kids this is very hard to do!

What can I do to help my child ?

• Including regular calming times during the day may

be helpful to keep their “teeter totter” balanced

• Calming input may do a lot to “prevent” meltdowns

and overload from sensory input

• Calming strategies will likely be useful to pass on as

hints to others about how to support your child’s

• ptimal functioning

Examples

Student Examples sensory progress Unified Dance Marathon- Students with and without intellectual disabilities join together Mn Special Olympics

Resource List

Sensory Processing Issues: strategies you can try at Home by Understood Team. https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/sensory-processing-issues/sensory-processing-issue s-strategies-you-can-try-at-home Sensory Processing Issues https://childmind.org/article/sensory-processing-issues-explained/ Sensory Smart Parent by Nancy Peske http://www.sensorysmartparent.com/sensory-diet Help your Child with Sensory Issues During the Holiday http://www.sensorysmartparent.com/single-post/2016/12/16/Help-Your-Child-with-Sensory-Issues-During-the-Holidays Learning activities from a OT and mom to do at home http://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/ OT blog on varies topics on right side (ie feeding, haircuts, sensory etc) http://mamaot.com/about/ Sensory Processing Disorder www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/adult-SPD-checklist.html

THANKS FOR COMING

QUESTIONS