Activities of Daily Living and Developmental Coordination Disorder

Physical Therapy published research on the differences between 25 children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and 25 of their peers with typical development for activities of daily living (ADL) performance, learning, and participation, and the predictive values of these aspects.

All of the children's parents completed the DCD Daily-Q. The DCD Daily-Q is a 23 item questionnaire regarding a child's ability to complete fine motor activities, self-care and self-maintenance skills and gross motor playing activities.  It includes tasks such as buttering a sandwich,
cutting a sandwich, pouring juice, opening a wrapper/package, coloring a picture, writing, playing hopscotch, jumping rope and eye hand coordination skills.  The results indicated the following:

1.  children with DCD showed poor performance of ADL and less frequent participation in some ADL.
2.  children with DCD demonstrated heterogeneous patterns of performance (poor in 10%–80% of the items) and learning (delayed in 0%–100% of the items).
3.  children in the DCD group with delays in learning of ADL were a predictor for poor performance of ADL, and poor performance of ADL was a predictor for less frequent participation in ADL compared with the control group.

References:
Berdien W. Van der Linde, Jaap J. van Netten, Bert Otten, Klaas Postema, Reint H. Geuze, and Marina M. Schoemaker. Activities of Daily Living in Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder: Performance, Learning, and Participation. PHYS THER November 2015 95:1496-1506; published ahead of print June 4, 2015, doi:10.2522/ptj.20140211

University of Groningen. The DCD Daily Q.  Retreived from the web on 12/7/15 at http://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/14048346/Chapter_4.pdf

Life Skills of the Month

By:  Your Therapy Source

Summary:  12 hand outs and posters to encourage practicing life skills throughout the year.

FIND OUT MORE at http://yourtherapysource.com/lifeskills.html

Minute to Win It for OT Month

Here is a fun idea to celebrate occupational therapy month this April. Have you heard of the hit television show Minute to Win It on NBC? Basically, the contestants are given challenges that they must complete in 60 seconds. The challenges usually involve sensory motor skills of varying degrees of difficulties. The materials for the challenges are common household items. Why not have your very own Occupational Therapy Minute to Win It challenges? You can vary the challenges to reflect different areas of occupational therapy. Have some prizes on hand for your contestants. Our local school is doing a fund raiser with Minute to Win It and charging admission to the show. Why not try and raise some money for occupational therapy supplies or your favorite charity. You can view all the "blue prints" (basically the directions for the challenges) at the Minute to Win It website.

Here are some ideas specific to occupational therapy:
1. Fine Motor Challenges

How high can you build a tower of marshmallows and toothpicks in one one minute?
How many paper clips can you chain together in one minute?
How many coins can you flip over from heads to tails in one minute?
How many stacks of 10 pennies can you build in one minute?

2. Sensory Challenges

From the show - unroll two rolls of toilet paper and wrap it around yourself in under one minute
How many times can you push a therapy ball through a tunnel in one minute?

3. Activities of Daily Living Challenges

How many times can you tie and untie your shoe in one minute?
How many times can you put on and take off your coat completely in one minute?

You get the idea. Vary the challenges as necessary based on the motor skills of the children at your school. And, if you still don't get it, visit the Minute to Win It website for loads of ideas! Have fun.

Here is an old blog post entitled 10 Things to Do to Celebrate Occupational Therapy Month