In my first e-book, The Practical Guide to Toilet Training Your Child With Low Muscle Tone, I wrote almost a full chapter just on clothing management. If your child needs you to pull clothing on and off, they are NOT fully trained. And if they have clothes that make it impossible for them to…… Continue reading Toilet Training? Your Child Needs the Right Shorts!
Category: sensory processing issues
Want Better Self-Regulation in Young Children? Help Them Manage Aggression
You might think as a pediatric OTR, I would be writing a post about sensory-based treatment for self-regulation. And I have in the past. Not today. But I have been an OTR for decades, and what I know about today’s children is that agitated and dysregulated kids often need help managing aggressive impulses and negative…… Continue reading Want Better Self-Regulation in Young Children? Help Them Manage Aggression
Doing OT Telehealth? Start Cooking (And Baking)!
Parents are looking for ways to survive the lockdown without daycare and preschool. Even the easiest child is starting to chafe under the oppression of the COVID quarantine. As an OT, it is my job to help parents support growth and development, but I don’t have to make it feel like work. Enter cooking and…… Continue reading Doing OT Telehealth? Start Cooking (And Baking)!
How To Pick A High Chair For Your Special Needs Child
My first Early Intervention home visits always involve seeing the child sitting in their high chair. Why? I learn a few very important things. I learn how the child is handled by the parent or caregiver, including whether they use the available strapping to secure them. Many don’t, and don’t realize that it is part…… Continue reading How To Pick A High Chair For Your Special Needs Child
How Therapeutic Listening Enhances Motor Skills
My readers know that I am a huge fan of Quickshifts in treatment. I have had some amazing successes with Quickshifts for regulation and modulation. Their focus on combining binaural beat technology with instrumentation, rhythm, melody and tone makes these albums effective, and it eliminates the challenges of modulated music for very young or fragile…… Continue reading How Therapeutic Listening Enhances Motor Skills
How To Improve Posture In Children With Low Muscle Tone… Without a Fight!
With pediatric occupational therapy going on at home using parents as surrogate therapists, it isn’t helpful to ask a parent to do too much repositioning of children with low tone. First of all, kids don’t like it. Second, kids really don’t like it. I have never met a child that enjoys therapeutic handling, no matter…… Continue reading How To Improve Posture In Children With Low Muscle Tone… Without a Fight!
A Practical Guide to Helping the Hypermobile School-Age Child Succeed
The JointSmart Child series started off in 2019 with Volume One: The Early Years. It is finally time for the school-age child to have their needs addressed! Volume Two: The School Years is available now on Amazon as an e-book, filled with information to make life at home and at school easier and safer. This…… Continue reading A Practical Guide to Helping the Hypermobile School-Age Child Succeed
Potty Training in the COVID-19 Age
Parents are staying home with their toddlers and preschoolers now. All day. While this can be a challenge, it can also be the right time to do potty training. Here’s how to make it work when you want to teach your toddler how to “make” in the potty: You don’t have to wait for…… Continue reading Potty Training in the COVID-19 Age
Stress Relief in the Time of Coronavirus: Enter Quickshifts
My clients know that I use therapeutic music called Quickshifts and Gearshifters in many pediatric therapy sessions. They use binaural beat technology (Binaural Beats and Regulation: More Than Music Therapy ) to induce an alpha brainwave state. This is the brain’s calm-alert state. Due to the unprecedented stress we are all under, I am using them…… Continue reading Stress Relief in the Time of Coronavirus: Enter Quickshifts
Sensory Processing, Allergies, and Colds: Nothing to Sneeze At!
Here in the US, it is cold and flu season. Most of my day is spend with kids recovering from some upper respiratory virus. A few seem to have a continuous runny nose and cough. They also have an increase in their sensory processing issues. Is this connected, and if so, what can be done?…… Continue reading Sensory Processing, Allergies, and Colds: Nothing to Sneeze At!
How Using Dr. Karp’s Fast Food Rule Transforms Kids With Special Needs
Yes, I said the word transform. I know that hyperbole isn’t always appropriate when you are a therapist (we try to hedge our bets with predictions), but I am willing to go out on a limb in this instance and say that learning this single Happiest Toddler on the Block technique will make a difference with…… Continue reading How Using Dr. Karp’s Fast Food Rule Transforms Kids With Special Needs
Should the PARENTS of Kids With Sensory Issues Use Quickshifts?
My clients and my blog readers know that I started using a therapeutic sound treatment called Quckshifts earlier this year Quickshifts: A Simple, Successful, and Easy to Use Treatment For Regulation, Attention, and Postural Activation. I haven’t lost my enthusiasm for this treatment. It has made easy sessions more effective, and difficult sessions workable. Kids that…… Continue reading Should the PARENTS of Kids With Sensory Issues Use Quickshifts?
When Should You Tell A Child NOT to Erase Their Mistake?
I wrote a post on erasing Teach Your Kindergartener How To Erase Like a Big Kid and one on erasers Problems With Handwriting? You Need The Best Eraser , but there are a few situations in which you don’t want a child to run for the eraser. The child who stalls for time. Some kids want to…… Continue reading When Should You Tell A Child NOT to Erase Their Mistake?
How an Occupational Therapist Can Help The Siblings of Special Needs Children
The parent of one of my clients recently returned from a conference related to her youngest child’s genetic disorder, and she told me that the presentation on helping the siblings of special needs kids really only offered one niblet of advice: “Try to give each sibling 10 minutes a day of “just us” time.”…… Continue reading How an Occupational Therapist Can Help The Siblings of Special Needs Children
Binaural Beats and Regulation: More Than Music Therapy
Binaural beat technology isn’t new. But it is powerful. This post is designed to answer some questions about how it works, why it works, and how I use it effectively in the treatment of sensory processing issues. For people who have read about or tried Quickshifts Quickshifts: A Simple, Successful, and Easy to Use Treatment…… Continue reading Binaural Beats and Regulation: More Than Music Therapy
The JointSmart Child Series: Parents of Young Hypermobile Children Can Feel More Empowered and Confident Today!
My first book, The Practical Guide to Toilet Training Your Child With Low Muscle Tone, was a wonderful experience to write and share. The number of daily hits on one of my most popular blog posts Hypermobility and Proprioception: Why Loose Joints Create Sensory Processing Problems for Children helped me figure out what my next e-book…… Continue reading The JointSmart Child Series: Parents of Young Hypermobile Children Can Feel More Empowered and Confident Today!
Why Injuries to Hypermobile Joints Hurt Twice
My new e-book, The JointSmart Child: Living and Thriving With Hypermobility, Volume I, is just about ready to launch. One of the book’s major themes is that safety awareness is something that parents need to actively teach hypermobile young children. Of course, physical and occupational therapists need to educate their parents first. And they shouldn’t…… Continue reading Why Injuries to Hypermobile Joints Hurt Twice
Pillowfort at Target: Should You Ask Your Child’s OT Before You Click “Buy”?
There are so many families out there that need great equipment for their sensory kids. Pillowfort materials are on sale at Target, one of my favorite big box stores. The items are affordable and stylish. But are they what you really need? In order to get the products that serve your child’s needs, you may…… Continue reading Pillowfort at Target: Should You Ask Your Child’s OT Before You Click “Buy”?
Hypermobility Or Low Tone? Three Solutions to Mealtime Problems
Many young hypermobile kids, with and without low muscle tone, struggle at mealtimes. Even after they have received skilled feeding therapy and can chew and swallow safely, they may continue to slide off their chair, spill food on the table (and on their body!) and refuse to use utensils. It doesn’t have to…… Continue reading Hypermobility Or Low Tone? Three Solutions to Mealtime Problems
How To Correctly Reposition Your Child’s Legs When They “W-Sit”
Hypermobile kids, kids with low muscle tone, and kids with sensory processing issues are champion “W-sitters”. What’s that? If your child sits with their thighs rotated inward, knees bent, and their feet rotated so their toes point outward, you have a W-sitter. This sitting pattern isn’t abnormal if it is only one of many…… Continue reading How To Correctly Reposition Your Child’s Legs When They “W-Sit”