Welcome to my blog!! My name is Joleen, and I am a school based occupational therapist. I have been an OT for 21 years, and have been working for a special services unit in the public school systems in central ND exclusively since 1998. I work with a variety of little friends who have a wide range of diagnoses: autism spectrum disorders (ASD- autism, PDD, aspergers), sensory processing disorder, cerebral palsy, developmental delays, Down Syndrome, ADD/ADHD and learning disabilities, to name just a few. Basically, any diagnoses or issue that adversely affects a child's educational performance that also requires OT as a related service in order to benefit from special education services. Whew! I think that about covers it!
This blog was started for several reasons...
1. To share OT related information/activities with the parents of my little OT friends, to help those parents further enhance their kids' skills,
2. To provide resources for parents and other educators/special services staff as I come across new material (and of course share some of the resources that I already know of and have available),
3. Reach/have a format for parents/families that I previously would only have been able to interact with on a limited basis due to schedules, lack of availability, etc.
4. Reduce the number of paper copies and make home programming ideas more readily available to parents, and
5. As a means to an end for my capstone that I am currently working on for Eastern Michigan University, thus finishing my master's degree in autism special education.
My goal is not to necessarily target a specific population of kids, but to provide information regarding sensory processing, fine and visual motor skills, bilateral coordination, oral motor skills, environmental supports, etc. that can benefit a variety of children, including regular ed kids. Keep in mind that I have not blogged before, and I am not tech savvy, so I will be learning along the way...it may take me a while to get things figured out on here (how to upload things, make the page user friendly, etc). But, if I can make things work out the way I would like them to, this could be a very useful blog to some of you, and very worthwhile for me to have as part of my OT practice. So, here we go...
