Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

The Essence of Occupational Therapy

Excerpt from: My Special Needs Network (click for full article)

 

 

Seven Ways to Help Your Nonverbal Child Speak

Excerpt from: Autism Speaks (click for full article)

 

This week, researchers published the hopeful findings that, even after age 4, many nonverbal children with autism eventually develop language. (Read our news story here.)

For good reason, families, teachers and others want to know how they can promote language development in nonverbal children or teenagers with autism. The good news is that research has produced a number of effective strategies.

But before we share our “top tips,” it’s important to remember that each person with autism is unique. Even with tremendous effort, a  strategy that works well with one child or teenager may not work with another. And even though every person with autism can learn to communicate, it’s not always through spoken language. Nonverbal individuals with autism have much to contribute to society and can live fulfilling lives with the help of visual supports and assistive technologies

April is OT Month!

Excerpt from: My Special Needs Network (click for full article)

 

Seems there are many things to celebrate in the month of April…including Occupational Therapy! Yes April is OT Month and as a therapist myself, it’s like having a month long birthday!  If you are a parent or caregiver with a child with special needs or a teacher that works with exceptional students, then you may be very familiar with the role an OT can play in helping to promote independence in sensory motor, cognitive, social and daily living skills development.  To learn more about the profession, visit AOTA.org.  Want to wish your therapist a happy OT Month? Here are some of my favorite picks that are sure to please both therapist and the kids they serve!

2013 Annual Fund Campaign: BE A MUSIC THERAPY MIRACLE

Excerpt from: D-Man (click for full article)

 

So, at the D-MAN Foundation, we’ve made it our mission to build a state-of-the-art music therapy program adapted specifically for the special needs of quadriplegics and other physically and cognitively challenged individuals.

With assistive technology including “sip and puff” modules that allow the use of computers hands-free, severely disabled people will be able to record and produce their own music in our new D-MAN Music Therapy Studio.

The doors to our studio will be open and ready for our first patients to begin their personalized music therapy programs on April 13, 2013—Danny’s birthday.

We’re beyond excited about bringing this breakthrough program to disabled people in our Metro Detroit communities.

And there are hundreds of patients who want the opportunity to change their lives for the better with music therapy.

But, we need your help to make it happen.

We need you to be a music therapy miracle.

Introducing Equine Therapy Blog

Excerpt from: Psych Central (click for full article)

 

Equine Therapy: Straight from the Horse’s Mouth with Claire Dorotik, LMFT. Claire has made a specialization of equine facilitated psychotherapy, developing an equine assisted psychotherapeutic approach that has proved highly effective in restoring emotional and physical balance to those who have battled trauma, abuse, and eating disorders.

She has written many articles for Horsetrader, Ride, and Flying Changes magazines on the subject of horses and horse training, and is also a contributing author to Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy: Straight Talk from the Horse’s Mouth, a continuing education course for psychotherapists currently offered by the Zur Institute in San Diego.

Please give Claire a warm Psych Central welcome, as I look forward to learning more about equine-assisted therapy at Equine Therapy: Straight from the Horse’s Mouth. Thanks!

AHCA calls for immigration reform to meet staffing shortage

Excerpt from: McKnight's (click for full article)

 

Saying the current permanent visa programs for immigrants are “insufficient and inadequate” to meet long-term care staffing needs, the American Health Care Association outlined its vision of immigration reform Wednesday.
 
“A critical part of any immigration reform package must take into account ways to supply the U.S. economy with the workers it needs to recover from the downturn and grow,” said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of AHCA.
 
The association is asking for employers to have access to previously unused H-1B temporary work visas for nurses and physical therapists, and for the government to waive the cap on employment-based visas for nurses and physical therapists, speech therapists and those providing other therapies. There were approximately 60,000 vacant direct care staff positions as of 2010, according to an AHCA study.

Mental Health Services for ASDs

Excerpt from: Making Special Education Actually Work (click for full article)

 

Rendering effective mental health services to students in special education who have ASDs and need mental health services in order to benefit from their IEPs can be done cost-effectively. It requires that the right combination of expertise and skill assembled for each student’s treatment team. It also requires well-designed mental and behavioral health treatment plans that include detailed descriptions of how the skills taught in therapy will be generalized to natural settings such as the classroom, playground, cafeteria, or school bus. The treatment team would need to function like a well-oiled machine, each complementing the work of the other.

The savings to society of doing it right would far exceed the costs of delivering a successful program. More importantly, there are just some aspects of independence upon which no dollar value can be placed. To be supported in becoming as independent as possible by one’s fellow citizens affords some of our most compromised citizens access to their Constitutional liberties, and that’s something of which one can be proud to be a part.

Dementia researchers identify therapies to improve eating habits, reduce depression

Excerpt from: McKnight's (click for full article)

 

A particular type of memory training combined with a Montessori-based approach to daily living can decrease depression in dementia patients by improving their eating habits, according to a recent study.

Researchers at Taiwan's National Yang-Ming University conducted a study involving 90 people with dementia. Twenty-seven participants received routine care. Sixty-three participants went through 24 sessions involving spaced retrieval therapy and Montessori-based activities. Spaced retrieval is a therapy in which people are asked to remember something repeatedly, at increasing intervals of time. Montessori involves doing daily living activities in a sequential, repetitive way.

The participants who did the combination therapy were better able to remember proper eating habits, which corresponded to a higher body mass index and less depression than the control group, the researchers found.

For some Michigan families, autism help in short supply

Excerpt from: Detroit Free Press (click for full article)

 

The state has only 44 board-certified behavioral analysts to provide the kind of therapy that Mahdi receives and that autism experts say is the most effective for many children. Plus, there are only a handful of centers around the state that can offer a thorough diagnosis of autism -- a step necessary to tapping into therapies covered by the state's three largest insurers.

"The challenge is expanding fast enough," said Diane Chugani, director of the autism center where four board-certified behavior analysts serve the Noureddine family and 77 others. There is a waiting list several months long while the center tries to add three more certified therapists.

It's not clear how many Michigan children are autistic, but at least 15,000 children and young adults in Michigan are receiving services through schools for autism, said Colleen Allen, president and CEO of the Autism Alliance of Michigan.

Helping others find their greatest accomplishment

Excerpt from: Orange County Register (click for full article)

 

San Juan Capistrano's Shea Center for Therapeutic Riding was founded in 1978 with one therapy horse, one rider and two volunteers.

Today, the center serves more than 400 riders every year, with 26 horses and more than 200 weekly volunteers. The center offers a variety of riding classes specifically designed to address and improve the lives of clients with disabilities.