Making Sense

STAR Institute
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Making Sense

Occupational therapy best practices ask us to integrate knowledge into practice. Each episode offers a conversation aimed at translating the most current research into clinical action for occupational therapy practitioners. Produced by the STAR Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, in an effort to further our commitment to impacting the quality of life.

  1. 04/20/2023

    Risky Play

    Anita Bundy, ScD, OT/L, FAOTA, FOTARA is a professor and head of the occupational therapy department at Colorado State University. She has conducted decades of experiments and research in Risky Play. Listen as Dr. Bundy shares both the benefits of risk-taking in play and the developmental costs of being risk-averse. The views expressed in the following presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of STAR Institute.   Resources Mentioned In this episode: Anita Bundy’s bio page, publications and awards at Colorado State University: https://www.chhs.colostate.edu/bio-page/anita-bundy-1189/ Sydney Playground Project: https://www.sydneyplaygroundproject.com/ Revised Knox Preschool Play Scale: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1698-3_604 Test of Playfulness (Bundy): https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1698-3_299 Neumann, Eva: The Elements of Play https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-1698-3_604 Gregory Bateson's concept of “metacommunication”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0732118X9190042K David Ball: Playgrounds - risks, benefits and choices: https://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/4990/1/crr02426.pd Tim Gill: The Benefits of Children's Engagement with Nature: A Systematic Literature Review: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.24.2.0010 Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vxKzmO8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao The Play Outside UBC Lab, led by Dr. Mariana Brussoni: https://playoutsideubc.ca/   Episode transcript:  Carrie Schmitt  I'm joined today by Dr. Anita Bundy. She's an occupational therapist, and thank you so much for being here today, I would love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself.   Dr. Anita Bundy  My pleasure to be here. Thank you, Carrie. I am currently the department head in occupational therapy at Colorado State University. And I've been engaged in labor you search for a long time now,   Carrie Schmitt  I saw that was an area of interest and research among your many distinctions and awards, and all of the important work that you've done in our field. And when I asked you one of the topics you might be interested in talking about today, you mentioned risky play. And so I was able to, you're able to share some articles with me and I was able to go and look up some of your research, I would love to hear the pathway, maybe or some of the things that you've found early in your research or curiosities about play that led you to study risky play as a research category. And you've done some really important findings on the topic.   Dr. Anita Bundy  Well, I started studying play as part of my doctoral work. And I was, I was interested in the notion that therapists had and I think still have, but that maybe not as strongly now that if we helped children to develop skills, those skills would automatically be transferred into their everyday life. And so I was interested in that I was interested in studying the relationship and and I chose to study the relationship between motor skills, and am I needed something functional, that children would do, and I was interested in, you know, graduating in my own lifetime, and I wanted children to be willing to participate. And so I chose play. And so honestly, play was, for me, at that point, a matter of convenience. And so I did my doctoral study. And as I, I observed, a number of children playing. And as I did, I actually became quite fascinated with, with the play part of it with watching children who had some kinds of difficulties. And I had one child in particular, who will always stay with me, and he was a child who had a lot of sensory integrative issues. And he, he was playing outdoors, and I was watching him play outdoors. And he was really terribly, terribly boring to watch out towards he, he was climbing up the slide and going down the slide. And this, this child was sort of he was more than six, he was somewhere between six and eight. But he climbed up beside me like down the slide, and I left the slide went down the slide, and he just did that for ever. And these two other children who were on the playground with him at the same time, they came over and said, Would you like to play with us? Now, of course, what they wanted, they were this was in the days when you had merry go rounds on on playgrounds, and they wanted him to push. But they didn't say that they asked him if he would like to play in. And this would have been a child who probably not very many children, asked him to play. And his response to those two boys was No, I'm busy. And he was busy going up and down the slide. So and I watched him do that for like 15 minutes, and he did nothing else. And so then I, we also watched the children indoors, and I wasn't scoring his play observation indoors, because different people scored them outdoors versus indoors. But I was there when he was playing indoors. And he was like a completely different child. He was he was near Thanksgiving. And he was directing all the other children to make a Thanksgiving dinner. So they had a shoe, which they had turned into a turkey. And he was he was just completely in charge of that whole place situation. And so so I just became very fascinated with the idea that that well, of course, did sensory integration affect his play. It absolutely did. But it didn't keep him from playing. And in fact, he was a great player in in certain circumstances, and that, of course, was not being captured the standardized assessments that we were using of his play. So that's how I got that's how I got into play research. And when I finished that, I finished my doctoral work i i started thinking I used to preschool play scale, to observe play. And I realized at some point that I did the preschool Play School scale was about the skills that children use when they play. It was not really about the play itself, which is how that child was not being captured very well by standardized assessment. And so I thought, well, I'll never do that, again, I'll find a test that really looks at play itself. But there really weren't, aren't very many of those kinds of assessments around. Most assessments really do look at the skills that children use when they play. And so I, I got engaged with several colleagues in developing the test of playfulness to look at the actual interactions that children had not so much what they did not so much the activity or the skills they use. But although the skills are a piece of it, but more about the transaction that was play itself. And so I worked on that for quite a long time. And then I went to Sydney, to work and work for the University of Sydney. And I was interested in doing research with play. And I was interested in something that that somebody would fund, because play research isn't really, I had a lot of funders list. And I gathered a group of colleagues around me who were interested in play in the way that I was interested in it. And so they were, this was a really interdisciplinary group. So we had a human geographer, pediatric exercise science person as a child psychologist. And we that was the core group that that started out. And so we sat down and thought, what would what would we like to do that would inform all of our disciplines, and would be, would actually capture play in the way that we wanted to do that. And so that we started something called the Sydney playground project, which was, which actually was using play as a medium to in the beginning to to promote children's physical activity. But we were very clear that what we what we were doing, what we were going to promote would be play itself. So it wasn't going to be remarkably just put, you know, there's many, many ways that that researchers use to promote physical activity. But we didn't want to do any of those things. We didn't want to draw lines on the playground, we didn't want to leave sporting goods equipment around, we didn't want to do any of that stuff. We wanted to actually promote play in groups of children. So we started out with a, a cluster randomized trial in regular mainstream schools. And we were funded by the government by the Australian government to do this project. And we put recycled materials on the playground. And a whole series of playgrounds. And it was really easy to get the kids to play the play the kids, you know, they love this stuff. They thought it was just great. It had it had no obvious play value. So it was things like tires. And so I don't know, pool noodles. And we had a whole we had a series of seven different criteria that had to be met for us to put these materials on the playground. And we changed them periodically, we added to them. And so you know, barrels, all kinds of different things that we just got from places and put on the playground. And it was really easy. The kids loved it. In fact, it was so popular that school, school principals started doing things like rostering children to the playground and answer them recycled materials when they were on the playground. So you had to use only first and second graders, for example, were allowed to use it on a certain day. And so that was that did kind of muck up the research a little bit because nobody bothered to tell us that they were doing that. But the children loved it. But the adults, the adults didn't love it so much. The adults were convinced that something terrible was going to happen to the children that they were going to get hurt. And so I mean, for example, we use pool noodles. We gave children pool noodles. And you can imagine that the first thing kids do when they have pool noodles is they start playing with them like their swords. And I was on the playground one day when a teacher said to me, you've taken the pool noodle. So I was like, Oh, yeah. She said yes. A child when she named the child, he came in the other d

    44 min

  2. 04/06/2023

    A Family Nurse Practitioner and mom shares her personal and professional encounters with ADHD and SPD

    Family Nurse Practitioner and Parent, Holly Healy offers both personal and professional insights into sensory differences. She recognizes the way that traits of ADHD and SPD present similarly and offers insight into her process as a parent of a child with sensory differences and her work as a diagnostician. The views expressed in the following presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of STAR Institute.   Resources Mentioned In this episode: Ahn R. R., Miller L. J., Milberger S., McIntosh D. N. Prevalence of parents' perceptions of sensory processing disorders among kindergarten children. American Journal of Occupational Therapy. 2004;58(3):287–293. doi: 10.5014/ajot.58.3.287 Chang, Y.-S., Gratiot, M., Owen, J. P., Brandes-Aitken, A., Desai, S. S., Hill, S. S., Arnett, A. B., Harris, J., Marco, E. J., & Mukherjee, P. (2016). White matter microstructure is associated with auditory and tactile processing in children with and without sensory processing disorder. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnana.2015.00169 Ghanizadeh A. Sensory processing problems in children with ADHD, a systematic review. Psychiatry Investig. 2011 Jun;8(2):89-94. doi: 10.4306/pi.2011.8.2.89 Kranowitz, C. S., Wylie, T. J., & Turnquist, T. H. (2006). The out-of-sync child has fun: Activities for kids with sensory processing disorder. Perigee Book. Miller, L. J., Fuller, D. A., & Roetenberg, J. (2014). Sensational kids: Hope and help for children with sensory processing disorder (SPD). Penguin Group. National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) Vanderbilt Assessment Scales for Diagnosing ADHD: https://www.nichq.org/sites/default/files/resource-file/NICHQ-Vanderbilt-Asses sment-Scales.pdf School-Based Intensive Education: https://sensoryhealth.org/basic/school-based-intensive-star-for-school STAR article: Is It Sensory Processing Disorder or ADHD?: https://sensoryhealth.org/node/1114 Unyte formerly Integrated Listening Systems (iLs): https://integratedlistening.com/ Wood, J. K. (2020). Sensory processing disorder: Implications for primary care nurse practitioners. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 16(7), 514–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2020.03.022   Episode transcript: Transcript of the episode’s audio Carrie Schmitt  I'm happy to be joined today by one of STAR's Board Members, Holly Healy. Holly, thank you for being here. I was wondering if you would introduce yourself.   Holly Healy  Sure. Thanks for having me. My name is Holly Healy and I have been a board member for two years now. I'm also a family nurse practitioner, and I practice in pediatrics for the past 17 years.   Carrie Schmitt  So I'm really excited to have this conversation because I think you could really help other family nurse practitioners, pediatricians, who also are on the frontlines of encountering people who are coming with concerning behaviors or some school reports that they can't make sense of. So tell me a little bit about how you got connected with the STAR Institute?   Holly Healy  Sure, I'd love to. So when my oldest who is now 11, was around four or five, we started to notice some behavioral differences with her and a lot of dysregulation, so it manifested in behavioral outbursts, and just really difficulty with sleep. And so we went to a counselor to try to figure it out, because we kept saying, well, she's anxious, she's anxious. So the counselor handed me, Lucy Jane Miller's book, and my husband and I read it together. And it was like a revelation. And we thought, this is her. This is this exactly explains, you know, what is going on. And so I read as much information as I could, and we got her into OT, we started changing things at home. And we didn't see a lot of progress at first. And so reading the book, I realized in going on the website, I realized, oh, there are trained OTs, by star, that have gone through a mentorship program. So when we finally kept hitting several walls, you know, with our OT treatment, I drove her four miles to the closest OT, who had been mentored by Starr and took her to Asheville, North Carolina, and we met with this amazing therapist, and the first thing she told me was, you know, we see things differently, we have a different lens in which we see children. With sensory processing disorder, she took two hours, and it changed our lives. And so from there, we launched into implementing a sensory diet every day, we got her into chiropractor, we got her into vision therapy, and then we also got her into horseback riding. So we learned that this wasn't just a once a week, go to OT, you know, and it was more this is, you know, this is part of like your life, this is how you need to change things daily. And, you know, it wasn't drastic, it was just small changes, and how we would view how does she need to start her day off, you know, it may not be what normal kids do to start their days. And so I also got myself certified with at the time it was called integrated listening systems, they've changed now to unite. So I got myself certified, and we put her through the focus program that I did, and got her started on the dream pads. So we just really implemented everything because we were honestly desperate to get her to a happy place. And, but also, I just, I'm a big fan of just learning information. And with her OT, I could never go back into the room. I didn't know what, what they were doing and how he could help her. So with with that particular visit, I stayed with them the whole time with this therapist that was trained by Starr and I was like, Oh, my goodness, this is fascinating, because I had so many questions that I could never really get answered, because the traditional treatment is I'm going to take your child back for an hour, I'll be back. And I'll give you two minutes to let you know what we did. And then I'll see you next week. So it was it was transforming. And so I then implemented it more into my practice. And I started to see children differently, that we're coming in with struggles, and I started to just completely change my perspective on how to help parents, from my own personal experience, and then just educating myself. So that's why I wanted to be a board member to just so I could help. From my perspective as a parent and a professional, help the you know, the organization, get get the word out, you know, how can we make this? How can we make everybody more aware of how to how to integrate it.   Carrie Schmitt  Thank you for sharing that a couple of things jumped out at me. One is, I'm thinking it's Dr. Miller's book, sensational kids. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So we'll put all of this in our show notes. So if you're listening and you're interested in reading This book, sensational kids hope and help for children with sensory processing disorder, you know, that has been transformative for people who are otherwise unaware of sensory processing differences, to read that book and know that this is its own diagnostic category, right, it's not listed in the DSM. Right now the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, it we have had efforts to get sensory processing differences or disorder, you know, classified as such, yet the science is telling us it truly exists. And one of the other things that you pointed out was that in that book, Dr. Miller shares, the development of the Star model. Model is a different approach to occupational therapy intervention for children with sensory processing differences. And one of the key features of our model is that it is fully relational, and that all of our intervention includes one or both parents in every session. And then every fifth or sixth session is parents only. So it's parent education focused, we're in, we recognize that you're the expert in your child, and we have a sensory lens, and we could guide you to adapt your lifestyle, to the new understanding of who your child is through that sensory lens. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened for you, this occupational therapist said, I'm going to put this sensory lens on, tell you what I see about your daughter. And then here are some lifestyle changes that would support improved regulation in her system. And then you as the expert went out and resourced all of those things, and implemented them with the support of a sensory trained occupational therapist. So I loved that. That's   Holly Healy  Yeah, and she gave us you know, some exercises to get started. And then I thought, I used this out of sync child has fun it was it has a bunch of activities in it. So what I did, and this might help parents, you know, it has some great information, I think I got the flashcards to one of the symposiums. But every every morning, I would wake up early, and I would just piece together, okay, this is what I'm going to do today. Because my daughter is a, she's a heavy into the heavy work, she was, you know, her ot really say, give her the heavy work. So I'd put together, you know, some things that would give me about 15 minutes every day of, you know, of activities for her to do says she could start her day off, right. So it's really just, you know, for parents, it's just taking the time to sit down, put together some activities, which I find fun, because I'm active too. And then just making sure each morning that your your child starts off, like getting their system regulated, it's like adults that need to take a run every morning, you know, before they can, you know, function. So it's, um, it was really great to realize this is a daily thing, not just once a week.   Carrie Schmitt  Yeah, right. And to recognize that as children, oftentimes, we don't have the agency or even the knowledge to know her body needs. And as adults we do. And so we all have sensory processing differences. And we all have designed our lifestyles to support them. So I always to parents, like you might wake up with music

    40 min

  3. 03/23/2023

    Reaching for Sustainable Behavioral Shifts: A Look Inside the Applied Educational Neuroscience Framework

    Join Dr. Lori Desautels to explore how trauma and adversity impact the developing brain and body and show up in the challenging behaviors we sometimes see. Learn about mitigating the effects of trauma in our schools and communities while building resiliency and a secure sense of belonging through a relational approach to discipline. Discover practices that meet our children, youth, and adults in their brain and body states and cultivate their social, emotional, and cognitive well-being. The views expressed in the following presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of STAR Institute. Resources Mentioned In this episode: Lori Desautels, Ph.D. resources: https://revelationsineducation.com/resources/?v=4096ee8eef7d Deb Dana, LCSW: https://www.rhythmofregulation.com/about Dr. Bruce Perry: https://www.bdperry.com/ Dr. Albert Wong: https://www.dralbertwong.com/ Dr. Stephen Porges: https://www.stephenporges.com/ Polyvagal graph from Dr Lori Desautels and Deb Dana, LCSW: https://twitter.com/desautels_phd/status/1391564089479114752?lang=en Angela Davis quote: https://gustavus.edu/gwss/events/angeladavisflier.pdf   Episode transcript: Carrie Schmitt I'm joined today by Dr. Lori Desautels. I was hoping that you could introduce yourself to the listeners today. And tell us just tell us a little bit about your background and where you are today. Lori Desautels Thank you, Carrie. And first of all, thank you for having me join in this really critical discussion. And so, I am an assistant professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. And I also am working with schools, organization, districts across the world right now, helping teachers, social workers, counselors, administrators, to really delve underneath behaviors. And to understand that the nervous system is really showing up every single time, we see challenging behavior from a child or an adolescent, or a colleague. So I've developed a framework that's evolving, it's continually changing. It's called applied Educational Neuroscience. And it really is about the adult nervous system, and how contagious emotions are. So we know that as a parent, I'm a mom also have three young adult children. But this is not just about me, as a professor, or as a school counselor, or as an educator, I carry in to my work, my lived experiences, what I have embodied. So the very first pillar at this work, we really take a deep dive into our own nervous systems. We know that behavior management is about adults, it's just not about kids. And this is a big shift for educators and for parents, to really begin to understand as the science. So well researched, and the literature share with us in this time. This framework also looks at co regulation, which is at the heart, it's at the core of this new lens for discipline. We take also a deep dive into touch points, which we term as those micro moments of connection that happen all day long, and most and what we sometimes misunderstand is that those touch points are nonverbal. So children and adolescents and any of us, when we are experiencing elevated or chronic stress, when our stress response systems are activated, we really are not listening to language or words, we're really tapping into nonverbal. And then the fourth pillar of the framework is really what I'm excited to share about often today. And that is we are teaching our children, little like four or five years old, in our adolescents and the adults, we're learning together about our nervous systems. So we're really moving away from always talking about behaviors, and looking at how our sensory and nervous systems are driving the behaviors that are indicators. They're just really signals that were rough, you know, or that we're feeling some steadiness or some groundedness. So that's, that's really what that's the work that I'm doing right now. Carrie Schmitt Oh, that's wonderful. I'm super excited to unpack that a little bit. Because I think, at the start Institute, we often encounter clients who come to us, because there is a behavior that the parents are encountering, the teacher is encountering, and that they're trying to make sense of, we are equipped with sensory lenses, right, because of our education around sensation and how sensation underlies a lot of our nervous system capacities. And so I immediately heard as you started the conversation around behaviors, and what behavior can teach us about what's going on with other people, but the twist that I heard was, what does behavior or our inclination to manage that behavior? Tell us about our own nervous systems? So talk to me a little bit about that. Lori Desautels Well, it's it's really a big shift in this time for adults, whether we are parenting whether we are caregiving, whether we are teaching anyone who sits beside Children and Youth, we need to begin to understand how our nervous systems are so contagious. And we can unintentionally escalate a child, or an adolescent, or our own children, by not tuning in, and being aware of our own nervous system states. And this is critical, because in our school, over the past couple of years during kind of during COVID, and kind of as we move through this global pandemic, all of us have been impacted by the trauma of this pandemic. And in the reason I bring that up, is because our bodies become hijacked by this sensory fragment, or the fractures that happen when we are confronted with significant or chronic adversity and trauma. And so, when we walk into a classroom, when we walk into, you know, our schools, we carry that with us, and our children and adolescents pick up on the autonomic state of our nervous systems. So we are seeing a significant correlation of high discipline referrals from educators that are also coming in in a very elevated and activated stress response state. And our discipline data in our schools really tells the story of our autonomic nervous system state. So when you see an teacher and administrator, a social worker, or a counselor, a bus driver of food service provider appear professional, when any of us are feeling so dysregulated, we can, again, unintentionally, really escalate everybody around us. And we misunderstand that that behavior is communicating a sensory or nervous system need, it's really a physiological challenge. It's not a behavioral challenge. Carrie Schmitt I'm so fascinated by how you're reframing this, and I think it's going to be pretty new to a lot of people. You work in a school system. And when you see high discipline referrals, one of the questions you're asking, is the adult in the situation regulated? And I think our system is built to say, what's wrong with the child's behavior? So what how do we, as adults take responsibility for our nervous system? Are there tools as a school counselor, as you know, a PhD scientist that you are like, what is it that you think, helps us? Is there a tool that helps us to understand our own nervous system state, so that we can come into these situations regulated with the capacity to also we'll talk about this later. But I think this is a good segue into lend our nervous system to the children that need the CO regulation, right? Because their behaviors are behaviors, they're communicating something, they're communicating something about their own nervous system. And oftentimes, as adults, we're called upon to lend our regulation to them, so that some co-regulation can occur. In the absence of an adult with a regulated nervous system. And a child with a dysregulated nervous system. We're getting discipline and behavioral referrals. Is that di summed that up correctly? Lori Desautels Yeah, pretty much. Yes. And this is true for Fs parent. So I really want to make the you know, as we speak about this framework, during the podcast, it says much about me at the mom as it is a professional and I want to also be clear that it's not very realistic to you know, to think about I must be regulated, I must be regulated. The goal is to recognize and be aware when we are dysregulated that is the first step that is a practice that we really want to bring awareness to the adults that worked with children and youth. It you know, we are human beings we're living you know, physiological organisms system that bro Read and live in rhythms and we, you know, move through our autonomic nervous system states all day long. That's, you know, there. That's the beauty of this, but, but we just really want to be very clear that it is so critical to be aware and to have that. Just that ability to tune into ourselves, and what's interesting in the western part of the world, when we come into the world, as infants, it's almost as if we're socialized out of our bodies, it feels like our heads go one way and our bodies go the other way. We're very cognitive, we're very language oriented. we problem solve, we talk about cognition in schools right now, the big hot topic, which is shocking, still, since coming through a pandemic is learning loss. And what we misunderstand is that it's that the language of the nervous system is sensation. And we are feeling and sensing creatures who think we are not thinking creatures who feel and sense. So our biology is all about sensing safety in our environments than seeing the rat or sensing conditions or experiences that are unfamiliar. So it really, we've moved away from the natural evolution of our nervous systems. And then language of the lower, like the brainstem, and the nervous system is all about conversation. So one of the tools that we share with adults than we share with students is to start to become aware of those sensations. And our children understand that we we talk about words like tingly, edgy, teary, flat, stuck. And we're moving away from those feeling words, as we really focus on those sensation words, because I know when I'm hot, I know when my ears are buzzing. I know when my heart is beating fast. I know

    51 min

  4. 03/09/2023

    A Family’s Journey to Sensory Health

    Parents of two boys with sensory differences discuss the experience of diagnosis and their pathway to building a sensory lifestyle for their family. Episode Guests: Jerade and Maria Tipton The views expressed in the following presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of STAR Institute. Resources Mentioned In this episode: STAR Institute: https://sensoryhealth.org/ Occupational Therapist trained in sensory processing through the STAR Insititute: https://sensoryhealth.org/treatment-directory Episode transcript:  Carrie Schmitt  I'm joined today by Jerade and Maria Tipton. Jerade and Maria are the first couple and parents that we've had on the podcast. So I would invite you guys to tell us a little bit about yourselves, your meaningful occupations, who you are, what you do in the world and who your family is.   Maria Tipton  I'm Maria Tipton, and I am a military spouse. I am a mom of two amazing boys. They're seven and nine. And I am also a corporate attorney. I also volunteer as President of the Board of Directors at STAR Institute, which is a passion of mine.   Jerade Tipton  As you mentioned, my name is Jerade Tipton, but yeah, I'm a career military professional. And so you know, I guess ever since I left high school, I guess you could say in my life is a life of service, both our country as well as my family. And that's what my primary energies and devotion is to.   Carrie Schmitt  Well, thank you so much for your service. So Maria, you and I connected at the star symposium, we were connecting and talking a little bit about some of the ways that the presentations had resonated with us. And your perspective as the president of our board, but also apparent, to me was such a unique perspective. And so we decided to regroup and record a conversation where you could talk about maybe your journey to connecting the star and a little bit about your family and your personal experience with sensory processing. Okay, so we started our journey. In August of 2016, when my oldest son was I had a limited verbal vocabulary, I would say, and so we were seeking speech therapy. And in the course of that, we referred to occupational therapy as well. And so that kind of opened up a whole new world I had never heard, I've heard of occupational therapy, but never experienced it, especially on a pediatric level. And so   Maria Tipton  I think back in 2016, when we received diagnosis, you know, you hear it was very deficit language, you know, as development, significant developmental delay. And at that point, I saw myself as a mom and an attorney, by trade. And so to take him to therapy three times a week, we had amazing therapists, but it was an approach where I had the therapist take him and do the therapy, and then I came home, and I wasn't really involved. And we then subsequently had a military move, and had to set all that up again, and we had a lot of trouble finding a right fit for our family. And through that course, I found an amazing occupational therapist, I kind of call her like our family ot because she brought me in the sessions really empowered me as a mother. And the sales progression grew exponentially because of that, I started taking classes that were for occupational therapist, but as a mother and doing a lot of home carryover with him. And I came across the star Institute, and because of his sensory needs, and it was just always such a resource for me, because there were Facebook Lives and webinars that I could take. And so I kind of had taken those during that time. And then when we were stationed in Georgia, the symposium was there in 2018. And I was like, I really want to go, like, I want to go to the parents seminar, I want to go to the symposium and so I was able to attend. And that was really life changing for me, because it I learned so much from all of the sessions, you know, at that point, there was a session on interoception was something that I hadn't heard about before, and you know, just kind of tools in things that I could utilize with our own family. And from there, I think, you know, everything just kept what is called like a flow, I think like it continued with him and he is just, you know, just such a well put together nine year old little boy with, you know, just really enjoying life. And so that kind of along with it is is our journey there's there's more to it in terms of we have a second child to that. And because we had gone on this journey with our car. First we recognize some, some things where he may need some intervention. And so that has has helped him as well.   Carrie Schmitt  Jerade, from your perspective, you are taking your military service, you're probably a leader in your roles. And Maria is communicating to you that she's a little concerned about your first child. And then she's when you start down this path. Tell, tell me a little bit about that from your perspective.   Jerade Tipton  Um, so when we started this, you know, it's one of those things is that I guess, it's different perspectives. Maria picked on it. We had a discussion about it. And I said, I know you're, yeah, you're right. He's, I would think he would be using more words and speaking more than I thought, Okay. I'm not really, you know, at what age? Does he become more intelligible in terms of when he's talking to his parents and things of that nature? And, you know, I do remember I thought is interesting when he was, we were living here. And we were downtown, I think old Colorado City. And, you know, a lot of noises and stuff like that, that a motorcycle that went by and Samuels response to that, that really caught me off guard, because he was just totally distraught about it. You know? And then when we started piecing all this together, I really remember that situation, like, yeah, maybe there's something going on here. And the fact is that, this he's getting a lot of inputs, and he's just not knowing how to, to work with those. I do know, I'll be honest, as Father, I was like, Okay, this was nice, like, hey, we'll get him wedding season people and he'll be he'll be fine. And what I realize is, it's not a one and done deal here. With this, it takes persistence. It takes perseverance, and acceptance to understand like, hey, my son has is working through this issue. And this is not going to be a quick fix. This is not gonna say, Hey, sit down with this person for a couple of weeks and do that. No, he's been he's been working through this. And he's now nine. And so part of it is just understanding like, it takes work, okay, it takes work on a parent's part takes work on the child's part, and also trying to develop that support network for that child. You know, it's funny, as kids, we don't really, we're very, I guess, narrow viewed as children, okay, get my life, I'm a child, you know, it's all this stuff around me. And they don't really understand. I know, when he gets older, he'll understand about how much work he had to put in. Maria has done a great job of trying to explain to him as he you know, every year he gets older, hey, this is this is where you were, this is where you're at, where you're at. And this is the work you still need to put in. So that we can kind of like, I guess, normalize that with him. And also allow him to accept that, you know, my biggest fear is you always your biggest fear is your child struggling. And that was my biggest concern. When she first we first started talking about it. Nobody wants to challenge struggle. You know, I'll be honest, my first responses by a broken heart. And I was worried and about him, and fearful. I was like, How are how are we gonna get through all this stuff, and I had to give it to my wife. I'll be honest, you know, what's military is very demanding. She put all her time and effort into chasing everything down.   Carrie Schmitt  First, I'm gonna say thank you for sharing that. Because I think from a parent's perspective, the last thing you want is for your child to struggle, a little bit about how you carry that forward, like Maria was telling me Jared that like as a leader, now, you have given a hand up to people behind you to say like, it's okay, if your child struggles, you can set up these services. And it sounds like Maria, you also have modeled that for other moms, maybe in your situation like, this is how you set up services in the context of the military or in the context of a military move.   Jerade Tipton  Yeah, I've, you know, been in positions with, with co workers and, you know, a military very tight community and share things. And, you know, I've had members share things and like, the struggles and stuff like that, and like, I was better able to relate to that situation was those those members that come and talk to me about that, and I was me, unfortunately, as always, I Hey, we have been through this. And I would always recommend them recommend they talk to my wife. So you know, and we had one situation in which we were able to help someone. And that means a lot. Even if you just help one person it means a lot that we're able to because we've experienced it we will share your experiences with this individual. And then this is how we move down the path. Okay, in support and hope and hopefully providing a better life for your child.   Carrie Schmitt  But what I hear is that you as parents said, This is who he is, I mean, love, and we accept Him, and we're gonna just do whatever it is to make a great life for him.   Jerade Tipton  Yes,   Maria Tipton  Yes, I think, absolutely. And, you know, when I hear Virginia speak, like, it's just like, I wish that I had these words when this first came on, because I still revert back to, you know, you're gonna revert back to the language that you heard at diagnosis. And so sometimes I go back to that, but you know, I, in talks, you know, she calls it asynchronous development, you know,

    55 min

  5. 02/23/2023

    The Role of Occupational Therapy in Trauma Informed and Responsive Care: An OT’s Personal Story

    According to the Administration for Children and Families (n.d.), nearly 500,000 children and youth are currently in the foster care system in the United States. Caregivers and professionals who work with children in the foster care system must have an understanding of and tools to provide trauma-responsive and trauma-informed care. Listen as occupational therapist and foster parent, Rachel Ashcraft, shares her personal and professional path to providing this care. Episode Guest: Rachel Ashcraft, MS, OTR/L The views expressed in the following presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of STAR Institute. Resources Mentioned In this episode: University of Alabama, Birmingham Department of Occupational Therapy: https://www.uab.edu/shp/ot/ Rachel’s non-profit: Foster the Future Alabama: https://www.fosterthefuturealabama.org/ STAR Education: https://sensoryhealth.org/landing-page/education Trust Based Relational Intervention ™ https://child.tcu.edu/about-us/tbri/#sthash.STk9qfIR.dpbs Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: https://research.aota.org/ajot/article-abstract/74/Supplement_2/7412410010p1/8382/Occupational-Therapy-Practice-Framework-Domain-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext Dr. Deb Hinerfeld: https://debihinerfeld.com/curriculum-vitae/ Dr. Amy Lynch: https://cph.temple.edu/about/faculty-staff/amy-k-lynch-tuf83028 Drs. Ryan Lavalley and Khalilah Johnson’s podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-thots/id1557659719 Dr. Alaa Abou-Arab: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alaaabou-arab/ Disrupt OT: https://www.disruptot.org/ Resmaa Menakem: https://www.resmaa.com/ SAMHSA Principles of Trauma Informed Care: https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/childrens_mental_health/atc-whitepaper-040616.pdf Making Sense Podcast on Anti-black racism in the Autism Pathway: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/5-concrete-action-steps-for-clinicians-t o-take-in-response/id1559608909?i=1000551993824 What Happened to you by Dr. Bruce Perry & Oprah: https://www.bdperry.com/ The Neurosequentail Model of Therapeutics (NMT) by Dr. Bruce Perry: https://www.bdperry.com/clincal-work Episode transcript: Carrie Schmitt Join Today by Rachel Ashcraft, she's an occupational therapist and assistant professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Thanks for being here today. Could you tell everyone a little bit about yourself? Hey, everyone,   Rachel Ashcraft  I'm so excited to be here. I'm Rachel, I'm assistant professor, as she said, at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. And my main focus and work that I do is within the realm of trauma responsive and trauma informed practices, and then really looking at what that means for us in the occupational therapy world and kind of how to take that lens and put it to what we do.   Carrie Schmitt   In your personal story, you were an occupational therapist practicing in pediatrics. And then you and your husband made a decision that took you down the road of getting interested in this trauma informed and trauma responsive work, do you mind sharing a little bit about.   Rachel Ashcraft  I love to Yeah, so I was a fairly new practitioner, and I was working in a pediatric outpatient clinic with a sensory focus. And just doing the day to day regular work, they're learning how to be a new clinician, you know, just kind of learning the ropes of everything, when my husband and I became aware of a really big need in our community within our foster care system. So we have learned that a lot of the kids in our county, we're not even having homes to go to. So I think at one point, it was like, there was maybe over 400 kids in care and just our specific county and like less than 40 homes, for them to even potentially go to, and most of those were full. And so kids were really ending up in places that were not ideal, just because there's nowhere for them to go. And so we've really felt kind of a burden of injustice just in the sense that we did have capacity to open our home up to open our family up to to take in not just these kids, but also to partner with their families, in the hopes of them being able to be reunified, because that's really the goal of foster care is for the children and the family to be able to stay together. And so we really felt like that was something that we could do. And so each day that we weren't doing this thing that we knew that we could do just really started to feel really like we were doing an injustice in our community by not showing up for that for that group. And so that's what happened, we became foster parents. And as that was happening, we had in the span of five years, we've had 24 Kids come through our house, as infants all the way through 17. So it was just a really kind of different way to enter that experience. Just even in just like, my season of life just being where I was kind of late 20s started my career. And now I'm trying to figure out how to help these kids and these families. What I felt like I noticed was that kids were coming into my home that were unable to do things that I expected them to be able to do that. Not that they should have based on their life experiences, but my lens, I was expecting them to be able to do things that they really wasn't a fair ask for them. So things like I distinctly remember, a child that couldn't had no idea how to take a shower. And so and they're really too old for me to be in there with them. Right? So trying to figure out how do I help this child learn how to take a shower in a way that's appropriate, but also honors, whatever experiences they've had that have been harmful and traumatic surrounding that space, you know, in their life. And just, all these different occupations were happening. And I was thinking these kids just don't, aren't getting help, you know, for what they need. And I wasn't even thinking of it from a really sensory health lens, or trauma informed lens. Like I really didn't even know enough at the time to be to be thinking that way. I was just thinking. I'm in a profession that helps people learn how to do the things they want me to do. And here's a group of kids that has no opportunity to do the things they want me to do. And that is wrong. And I really just started feeling like the same sense of kind of injustice about our profession, that we weren't stepping up for this group of kids and these families in our culture. In the same way. We my husband and I were feeling you know, we're really doing an injustice. If we don't step up for these kids and bring them into our home. I started feeling that same like professional injustice of why are we as occupational therapy practitioners, not showing up for these kids and not really kind of seeing what we need to do to help them be able to participate. And so that kind of started me down this path, where as I learned more i I was able to understand what the barriers were in the foster care system and started trying to figure out how to eliminate some of those barriers that ended up in me creating a nonprofit actually, with the mission of reducing systemic injustice and access to care that kids in Alabama's foster system experience. But it also ended up in me doing things like going to the star mentorship program and learning more about sensory health, you know, and then as I did that, I was able to bring that back to the kids I was working with and think about, oh, gosh, like, I've learned all these, like subtypes and all this stuff about sensory health from starts to two. And now I'm seeing these very specific expressions of those patterns, but in ways that have to be really gently met in a trauma informed way, so that we're not harming these kids. And so that we're really valuing safe relationship and everything we do, which I know is what you know, the star model does already. So that started to be a really good fit for me. And then I started learning more about trauma informed models and got trained in trust based relational intervention, you know, and started really bringing that perspective to what I was doing. And then what happened is I started realizing like, it's not just the foster care community, but it's trauma is this whole bigger conversation that actually impacts all of us. And it impacts at these individual levels, but also all the way systemically. And it's just so broad and started really realizing that's how all our practice should be, you know, for everybody is really looking through that lens. And so I've just kind of continued to do work down that path over the last 1015 years. And that's kind of where I've ended up today, really, as an advocate for what I believe is that we should all be using trauma responsive, and trauma informed practices, and everything we do with everybody will be interact with. But it's been kind of a journey to get there.   Carrie Schmitt  I love the almost organic way your journey happened. Going back to kind of this the origin story of your involvement in the foster system and your recognition of injustice that you felt called to remedy. You had training in development, training in occupation, and then you received into your home, children who were at an age where you would have thought someone had already taught them some of the life skills, daily occupations. And it sounds like your very first realization was that you are uniquely trained to recognize, you know, developmental differences or skills that haven't been learned, and then teach them. And yet, suddenly, you realized what the root of the impact of some of their histories was having and how their histories might have contributed to, and are still contributing to barriers to learning those skills. Does that sound right?   Rachel Ashcraft  Well, that's exactly right. And, I mean, again, I have to emphasize I was such a new practitioner, when I first kind of came to this. So I really didn't know if I was way out of li

    44 min

  6. 02/22/2023

    Making Sense Season 3 is Sponsored by Summit Sensory Gym

    Making Sense Season 3 is Sponsored by Our Community Partner Summit Sensory Gym Are you an occupational or physical therapist struggling to excite your patients with different therapeutic activities, or even worse are finding that your therapists and more importantly your patients are tired of the same old therapy? If you're like most practices are organizations, acquiring new patient referrals and converting them into ongoing patients is often very expensive and time consuming. This fact was proven in a recently completed survey of 500 patients. The outcomes of the survey showed patients are 18% more likely to cancel or no show their therapy session if they expected the therapy session to be a repeat of a previous session or lack any excitement. Have you ever wondered if there was a way to reduce patient cancellations and amplify a patient's therapy experience? Well, we've got some good news. This doesn't have to be the case with your practice or organization. Introducing Summit Sensory Gym, the industry leader in freestanding sensory therapy gym structures. Summit Sensory Gym is passionate about creating unexpected adventures through our multifunctional gym packed with all the therapeutic benefits you've always desired for your patients. Our freestanding sensory gym structures encourage patients to explore and learn fundamental lessons by inspiring imagination, adventure and learning. Whether you're looking to replace an existing therapy structure or design a custom sensory gym for your new facility, our commercial gym equipment, accessories and design capabilities will not disappoint. Summit Sensory Gym is fully equipped to take your visions of the perfect therapeutic gym structure and turn them into reality. Our time proven process finally calibrates these dreams into innovative, functional and life changing therapeutic assets that will help the lives of those we care for most. As the industry leader, we are proud to be the STAR Institute Community Partner. For a limited time Summit Sensory Gym is offering a $300 shipping credit for all sensory gym purchases. To learn more about Summit Sensory Gym, please visit us at summitsensory.com or give us a call at 720-457-5500.

    3 min

  7. 03/23/2022

    The Shift to Neurodiversity-affirming Psychological Assessment

    The concept of neurodiversity is credited to a sociologist named Judy Singer. Neurodiversity recognizes and pays respect to the diversity of human minds, and the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species (Walker, 2014). Today, listen in as two clinical psychologists, Dr. Courtney McDonnell and Dr. Jared Kilmer, discuss what a neurodiversity affirming assessment pathway could look like.   Episode guests: Courtney McDonnell, Psy.D. & Jared Kilmer, PhD   Resources Mentioned In this episode:​ Game to Grow: https://gametogrow.org/ Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI): https://www.parinc.com/Products/Pkey/287 Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnoistic Scale, Revised (RAADS-R): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3134766/ Neurodiverse affirming therapists Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2219847184963504/about/ Dr. Joel H. Schwartz: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/joel-h-schwartz-torrance-ca/161994 MIGDAS-2: Monteiro Interview Guidelines for Diagnosing the Autism Spectrum, Second Edition https://www.wpspublish.com/migdas-2-monteiro-interview-guidelines-for-diagnosing-the-autism-spectrum-second-edition?utm_term=migdas&utm_campaign=Search+%7C+Autism&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_tgt=kwd-331660223516&hsa_ad=376185522396&hsa_acc=6243382947&hsa_grp=71450949288&hsa_mt=p&hsa_cam=1687564772&hsa_kw=migdas&hsa_ver=3&hsa_src=g&gclid=CjwKCAiAxJSPBhAoEiwAeO_fP4K9m73E7GIkPMECCPpN6NuznTdqsAxCElhIq0AC1xu0L9kCL03Q2RoCnhkQAvD_BwE How to ADHD on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HowtoADHD Walker, N. (September 2014). Neurodiversity: Some basic terms and definitions. http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neurodiversity-some-basic-terms-definitions/ SPONSORED BY CALM STRIPS To learn more about Calm Strips and to purchase your strips today, visit www.calmstrips.com. Save 20% on your order for $20 or more with promo code CALMSTAR20.

    45 min

  8. 03/09/2022

    Evidentiary support for Occupational Therapy’s Role in Empowering the Occupation of Caregiver in those caring for Autistic Loved Ones

    Evidence-based practice is vital to focus the OT lens and voice in the autism community.  Occupational therapists are in a position to recognize the importance of the occupation of caregiver and provide evidence-based support in intervention when working with all clients. Today, we focus this conversation on autism intervention science.  Listen as this conversation unpacks the value of research in guiding us towards essential ingredients in support of caregiver agency with a focus on the parent-child dyad.   Episode guest: Carrie Alvarado, Ph.D., OTR   Resources Mentioned In this episode:​ Autism Community Network https://www.acn-sa.org/ Developmental, Individual Difference, Relationship-based Model training (DIRFloortime® model https://profectum.org/training-programs/training-2/ Green, J., & Garg, S. (2018). Annual research review: The State of Autism Intervention Science: Progress, target psychological and biological mechanisms and future prospects. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(4), 424–443. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12892 Pediatric Autism Communication Therapy https://www.pacttraining.co.uk/ Profectum Foundation https://profectum.org/   SPONSORED BY CALM STRIPS To learn more about Calm Strips and to purchase your strips today, visit www.calmstrips.com. Save 20% on your order for $20 or more with promo code CALMSTAR20.

    52 min
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4.2
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

Occupational therapy best practices ask us to integrate knowledge into practice. Each episode offers a conversation aimed at translating the most current research into clinical action for occupational therapy practitioners. Produced by the STAR Institute, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, in an effort to further our commitment to impacting the quality of life.

Information

  • Creator
    STAR Institute
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2023
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Making Sense

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