Motor Skills, ADHD and Medication

Research in Developmental Disabilities published a review of 45 research articles analyzing the motor skills of of children (between 6-16 years old) with ADHD  and the influence of medication on their motor skills.

The results indicated the following:

1.  more than half of the children with ADHD have difficulties with gross and fine motor skills.

2.  children with ADHD inattentive subtype presented with more impairment of fine motor skills, slow reaction time, and online motor control during complex tasks.

3.  the percentage of children with ADHD who improved their motor skills to the normal range by using medication varied from 28% to 67% between studies.  The children who still show motor deficit while on medication might meet the diagnostic criteria of developmental coordination disorder (DCD).

The researchers recommend that assessment of motor skills is needed among children with ADHD because of the risk of reduced participation in activities of daily living that require motor coordination and attention.

Reference:  M.-L. Kaisera,Schoemakerb, J.-M. Albaretc , R.H. Geuzea. What is the evidence of impaired motor skills and motor control among children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Systematic review of the literature. Research in Developmental Disabilities
Volume 36, January 2015, Pages 338–357.

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Fantastic Fingers® Fine Motor Program
By: Ingrid C. King OT

Summary: The fine motor program includes ebook, music and instructional videos
which are user-friendly, economical and research based. It helps to improve the
development of children's fine motor skills, pencil grip and posture.

FIND OUT MORE AT http://yourtherapysource.com/fantasticfingers.html

Strengthening Versus Balance Exercises for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

The American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation published research on 30 children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) comparing the effects of muscle strengthening exercises versus proprioceptive-balance exercises on lower extremity function.

Each child was evaluated for pain, passive range of motion, muscle strength, balance, and functional abilities using the Numeric Rating Scale, goniometer, handheld dynamometer, Flamingo Balance Test, Functional Reach Test, 10-meter walking test, 10-stair climbing test, and Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire. The participants were randomly assigned to the strengthening exercise group or the proprioceptive-balance exercise group.

The results indicated the following:

1.  statistically significant improvements in all outcome measures were recorded except muscle strength in the hip and ankle after strengthening exercises.

2.  statistically significant improvements were found in all outcome measures after the proprioceptive-balance exercises.

3.  Intergroup analysis showed statistically significant improvement in all outcome measures in the proprioceptive-balance exercise group except for the Numeric Rating Scale, Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire, and passive range of motion scores and hip extension and knee flexion muscle strengths.

The researchers concluded that exercise treatment significantly improves musculoskeletal symptoms in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Balance-proprioceptive exercises were shown to be more effective than strengthening exercises for improving lower extremity function such as walking, climbing stairs, and balance in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Reference:  Baydogan, Saime Nilay MSc, PT; Tarakci, Ela PhD, PT; Kasapcopur, Ozgur MD.  Effect of Strengthening Versus Balance-Proprioceptive Exercises on Lower Extremity Function in Patients with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: A Randomized, Single-Blind Clinical Trial. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.  Published ahead on print on 3/24/15. doi: 10.1097/PHM.0000000000000279

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Cross the Beam Game
By: Your Therapy Source

Summary: Download of game that encourages balance skills and
visual perceptual skills.  Find out more at http://yourtherapysource.com/beam.html

Brain Breaks for Spring $0.99 Until Tomorrow

Just finished the Brain Breaks for Spring and they are only $0.99 until 3/12/15.  I usually don't put the seasonal brain breaks on sale but due to Spring fever here I figured I would lower it to only $0.99 to help get kids moving!  Get more information at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/brainbreaksspring.html

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8 Simple Tips to Empower Students to Reach Their Goals

Here are 8 simple tips to help students reach their goals:

1. Change up the tools, toys or activities that you are doing. It may be just as simple as approaching the skill using a different tool or material.

2. Change the environment. Perhaps trying accomplishing the skill outdoors, in a quiet room or with a peer.

3. Be positive. If you assure the student that they have the ability to accomplish the goal you will provide them with the ability to believe in themselves. The power of positive feelings can go a long way. Check out Positive Affirmation Posters and Cards to provide your students with a visual reminder at http://yourtherapysource.com/positiveaffirmation.html.

4. Change your teaching style. If you are only providing verbal directions, perhaps offer a demonstration or a visual picture of what the student needs to accomplish. If you are always offering verbal feedback, perhaps try diminishing how often you provide feedback to see if that makes a difference.

5. Offer rewards. Some students respond very well to a reward system. Check out free positive reinforcement ideas to use during therapy sessions at http://yourtherapysource.com/blog1/2014/03/29/5-free-positive-reinforcements-ideas-to-use-for-therapy-sessions/.  Try using Punch Cards and Reward Cards for therapy.  Find out more here http://www.yourtherapysource.com/punchcards.html

6.  Set goals each session.  Work with the child to set mini goals each session.  This will empower the student experience small successes will help you reach the larger goals.

7.  Teach the child to focus on their strengths.  By educating the child on what they do best you can help them use different strategies to reach their goals.  The typical way to achieve a skill may not be the best way for each child.  Start off my keeping track of what the child can do.  Check out these free "I Can" cards to keep track off all of his/her accomplishments.  Get them at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/freeicancards.html.

8.  Teach the child to track their own goals.  The student can track his/her goals over
time, by monitoring the skills over the course of a day, week, month or quarter. This allows the student to get a visual picture of improvement, decline or maintenance of different skills.  By having the students track their own goals they will take ownership of their progress.  It doesn't get any easier than this to track progress.  Check out My Goal Tracker to get started.  More info at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/goaltracker.html.

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Title: My Goal Tracker
By: Your Therapy Source Inc

Summary: Download of materials to create a binder for student generated data collection on his/her goals. Two versions - Handwriting with Tears® and Zaner-Bloser® Style.

Find out more at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/goaltracker.html

 

 

Educate! Educate! Educate!

As pediatric occupational and physical therapists we always need to remember that one of the most important, if not the MOST important, aspect of our job is to educate.  We need to let students, teachers, school staff and parents know what we do and why we do it.  Without buy in from all team members goals can not be reached.  In addition, in order for therapeutic activities to be carried out all day long we need to educate people how to make that happen.  A 30 minute pull out therapy session may be beneficial but even better is to train someone else who is with that child all day, every day, on how to do what you do during a therapy session.

Hang up this sign in your therapy room or toss it into your folder to remind you to educate!  You can download it at http://yourtherapysource.com/freeeducate.html

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Farm Animal Detectives - Visual and Sensory Motor Freebie

Print and play this fun visual perceptual and sensory motor activity for children to guess and move like the animal.  Print your free copy at http://www.YourTherapySource.com/freefarmanimals

Free Self Calming Deep Breathing Activity

Here is a free self calming deep breathing activity.  Print and cut out the deep breathing cards.  The child can take 4 deep breaths trying to breath in through the nose (smelling the flowers) and out through the mouth (blowing out the candles).  You can print the activity at http://yourtherapysource.com/freecalmbreath.html

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Lots of New "Stuff"

There are lots of new resources on the website:

1.  The September edition of the digital magazine has been posted.  Catch up on research articles, read tips on staying organized this school year, get free printables (including schedule cards) and more.  You can view it at  http://yourtherapysource.com/magazine.html



2.  Check out the latest ebook - Data Tracking for School Based OTs and PTs.  This is a nice resource to track progress towards IEP or other goals.  It is in Excel (which you can edit) or in PDF format.  Enter the data in Excel and a graph will generate automatically to provide a nice visual for school staff, students and parents.  Find out more information at http://yourtherapysource.com/datatracking.html



3.  Another new ebook, Cooperative Activities for Kids: 12 Playful Activities to Get Kids Working and Moving Together, has been added.  This ebook is written by pediatric therapists who are also mothers, so you are getting some tried and true activity ideas in this book.  Get more information at http://yourtherapysource.com/treehouse1.html



4.  We recently added a whole new collection of video and activity cards for children from Move-With-Me.  Check out all the titles that combine stories, creative movement, yoga and Brain Gym®.  All the videos and activity cards are instant downloads ready to use in your next therapy session.

If you want to keep up on all our new products and receive notification when items go on sale, be sure to subscribe for our email newsletter here http://yourtherapysource.com/index.html.

If you want to subscribe to get email notification for each blog post sign up below.

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New School Year, New Students - Starts with Observation of Play Skills

Play for young children is crucial to healthy development. Pediatric therapists who work in early childhood education know the importance of play and how to use it to reach IEP goals that are set for specific children. When a child is evaluated for therapy services, the therapist observes the child in the classroom setting. Therapists will then often consult with teachers and school staff on using different toys, activities and centers to encourage practice of motor skills and sensory development. Here are several tips to fine tune your observation skills and to guide children’s play in the classroom.

1. Observe the environment.
Can the child access all the toys and activities? Are activities practiced in different environments to encourage generalization of skills?

2. Observe what the child does during free play.
What toys does the child like to play with the most? During free play what centers does the child spend the most time in?

3. Observe what toys or activities the child prefers.
Just like learning styles in older children, you can assess learning styles in little ones by what toys they prefer. Does a child prefer visual, auditory, tactile or kinesthetic activities?

Once these questions are answered use the gathered information to create a plan of action. Make sure that if possible all of the toys are accessible for the children. Provide the classroom staff with specific ways to generalize skills across different centers. After determining a child’s toy preferences use that knowledge to make suggestions regarding toy placement. If a child dislikes a certain center, try adding favorite toys into that center to initially engage the child. After these ideas have been tried and a child is still not engaging in certain centers, provide prompting by adults in the classroom. Make sure that the adults provide the least amount of prompting that is necessary. Prompting can be done along a continuum such as:
1. Present the activity to the child
2. Provide a verbal request to play.
3. The adult can model how to play.
4. The adult uses hand over hand to assist with play.
At each stage of prompting the adult should wait several seconds for the child to interact following the prompt before moving on the the next level of prompting.

Each time that you observe a child in a natural setting, remember to observe closely to ensure that the environment is suitable for developmentally appropriate play. What do you find works best to engage children in play? Do you have any other observation tips? Would love to hear what works for you…

Reference: DiCarlo, C., Vagianos, L. (2009) Using Child Preferences to Increase Play Across Interest Centers in Inclusive Early Childhood Classrooms. Young Exceptional Children 12:4 (31-39).

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Free Scheduling Cards for OT and PT

These are ready just in time for the start of the school year (or use them anytime you change your schedule to update everyone).  These scheduling cards are the size of business cards.  Use them to inform teachers, students and parents what day and time a student has therapy and to provide your contact information.

You can even type right on them and then print them out (you only have to type in one card and it will repeat on all 10 on the page).  Then manually fill in student's name, day and time when ready to hand out the card.  Or you can just print them and hand write each card.

You can download the scheduling cards for school based occupational and physical therapy at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/freeschedulecards

 

Higher BMI Increases Asthma in Children

The University of Bristol conducted research on almost 5000 children at age 7.5 years old.  Using Mendelian randomization to look at changes in gene patterns they found a strong connection between asthma, BMI and body fat. Most significantly they found that the relative risk of asthma increased by 55 per cent for every extra unit of BMI.

The researchers concluded that a higher-than-average BMI increases the risk of childhood asthma and that public-health strategies designed to reduce obesity may help to decrease the global rise in asthma.

Reference: 'Effects of BMI, fat mass, and lean mass on asthma in childhood: a Mendelian randomization study' [open access] by Granell R, Henderson AJ, Evans DM, Smith GD, Ness AR, et al. (2014) in PLoS Med 11(7): e1001669. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001669

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Postural Stability and Cerebral Palsy

Pediatric Physical Therapy published research comparing postural stability during static upright standing between 45 children with cerebral palsy (CP) and 45 age-matched peers with typical development (TD) ages 5-12 years old. A posturography device was used for assessment. Postural stability was evaluated under 4 sensory conditions: eyes open and eyes closed on a firm surface; eyes open and eyes closed on a foam surface.

The results indicated the following:
1. Statistically significant differences were obtained between children with spastic diplegic CP and children with TD under all conditions involving visual and somatosensory conflicts

2. no significant differences were found between children with hemiplegic CP and children with TD.

The researchers concluded that children with spastic diplegic CP have increased postural instability under sensory conditions with both visual and somatosensory conflicts.

Reference:  Saxena, Shikha MPT; Rao, Bhamini K. MPT, PhD; Kumaran, Senthil MPT.  Analysis of Postural Stability in Children With Cerebral Palsy and Children With Typical Development: An Observational Study. Pediatric Physical Therapy Fall 2014 Vol. 26 - Issue 3: p 325-330

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Creating a Professional Development Library

We all know how expensive professional development resources can be especially in the therapy world. Textbooks can be pricey along with individual research articles. For school based therapists, perhaps create a collaborative PD "library".  

You could create a real collection where all the therapists in your district bring in their resources.   Store them all on a book shelf with a simple check out system.   Set a time limit on how long an item can be checked out ie two weeks or four weeks.   Make sure everyone writes their names clearly on the resource material.   When borrowing an item write down your name, the title and the date you borrowed it on an index card.   Slip it in a box and read away.   Return the item within the designated time frame.

Another option is to create a virtual library. Create a list of what resources everyone owns. When someone wants to borrow an item, contact the owner and make a borrow request.  The owner of the resource knows exactly who has it then and can keep track of it.   Remember to still add a due date so no one has the resource for too long or forgets to return it.

Do you have access to a professional development library at your job?

Need continuing education courses?  Check out the online listings at http://yourtherapysource.com/ceu.html

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A Simple Toy

This is the second video this week I have seen that shows young children do not always need bells and whistles to entertain them.  Sometimes we work too hard as therapists, teachers and parents to make sure we have the latest and greatest toys to entertain our children.

Confucius once said "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated".

Trust me, you will smile at the simplicity of this...

Post by Harlan Ogle.

Have a Ball This Summer

Today I'm over at OT Cafe sharing a must-have item in my therapy bag.   While you are here, download this list of 15 ways to have a ball this summer and then head on over to Abby's blog to find out why I always have a playground ball in my therapy bag.

 

 

Pipe Cleaners and Straws

Here are three fun, unique fine and visual motor activities using pipe cleaners and straws.  Start by having the child cut up straws and some pipe cleaners into smaller pieces.

1. Alphabet:  The straws are the straight lines of letters and the pipe cleaners are the curves.

2.  Modern Colander Art: Stick pipe cleaners into the colander and lace the cut up straws onto the pipe cleaners.

3.  Shapes:  Insert small pipe cleaner pieces into the straws and connect them to make different shapes.  Have fun creating abstract 3D shapes.

Do you have any other suggestions to add?

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4 Free Summer Printables for Motor Skills

Need a summer motor activity in a hurry?  Check out these freebies:

1.  Watermelon Multisensory Handwriting Activity Page at http://yourtherapysource.com/mssummerfreebie.html

2.  Hand Out on Fun Physical Activities for the Summer at http://yourtherapysource.com/summerfree.html

3.  Summer Tic Tac Toe at http://yourtherapysource.com/summerfitnessfreebie.html

4.  Outdoor Bingo at http://yourtherapysource.com/fmsummerfree.html

Happy Summer!

Self Improvement

Here is a self improvement worksheet to complete to establish what steps need to be taken to achieve a goal.   I love any activity that requires the child (or an adult like myself) take ownership of how one can improve or reach a goal.  You can print this FREE worksheet with blank boxes to write or draw in or dotted handwriting lines to use as a guide.  Download the two pages at http://www.YourTherapySource.com/freeselfimprovement.

This form could be used for:

• behavior modification


• self regulation


• establishing sensory diet activities


• goal setting

Here is an example of how it could be used - Student is unable to walk in a class line without touching peers.  Therefore the worksheet may look something like this:

Currently I can walk in a class line without talking.

I need to improve my ability to walk in a line without touching anyone else.

My goal is to walk in a line from the classroom to the cafeteria without touching any of my peers.

List ways to reach my goals:

1. Stand at the back of the line.


2. Do 10 wall push ups before I leave the classroom.


3. Put my hands in my pockets while I walk.


4. Hold a squishy object while I walk.


5. Leave extra space between me and my peers while walking.

I will achieve the goal on this date:  June 25.

I can think of a few ways I could fill out the form for myself.  I need to improve being organized, household chores, time management skills, etc!  I better print this form a few times.

Freebie from the Summer Fitness Challenge

Download this freebie from the Summer Fitness Challenge to get kids moving this summer!  You can download it at http://yourtherapysource.com/summerfitnessfreebie.html

Your Opinions on the Effects of Tablet Use on the Overall Development of Young Children

We asked and 264 of you responded on what effects you think tablets and smartphones have on the overall development of young children.  Here are the highlights:

• 61% of the respondents were pediatric OTs.


• 53% of all respondents think that tablet/smartphone use delays social development in 0-5 year old children.


• 36% of all respondents think that tablet/smartphone use delays speech development in 0-5 year old children (although 34% responded no and 30% responded not sure).


• 56% of all respondents think that tablet/smartphone use delays fine motor development in 0-5 year olds.


• 69% of all respondents think that tablet/smartphone use delays gross motor development in 0-5 year olds.


• 46% of all respondents that that tablet/smartphone use creates behavioral problems in 0-5 year olds.

To view the complete results visit http://www.yourtherapysource.com/surveytableteffects.html

Please respond to the current survey on using social media for professional reasons.

Would love to hear your thoughts about these results...

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