Summary:
Justin Unger is a sweet five-year-old male who is currently enrolled in kindergarten at Southwoods Elementary School. He was referred to occupational therapy by his teacher due to difficulty with recognizing and writing letters and numbers and completing fine motor activities. He was pulled from his classroom and evaluated using the Printing Performance School Readiness Test (PPSRT) and the Visual-Motor Integration assessment (VMI). Clinical observation was used to assess Justin’s actions and behaviors within the classroom and on the playground.
Per teacher report, Justin has difficulty attending to and completing activities within the classroom. Justin’s scores on the PPSRT show that he is unable to form his letters correctly, has difficulty recognizing letters placed before him, and is unable to write a letter without visual cues (Simner, 1982). These deficits lead to a severe developmental delay in writing tasks and letter recognition. When Justin was observed during tabletop activities, he did not recognize his last name and was only able to write eight letters of the alphabet independently. In addition, Justin was unable to draw a square or a triangle without having a visual example to copy. Lastly, the VMI shows that Justin has a severe delay in visual-perceptual skills and motor coordination (Beery, Buktencia & Beery, 2010). These delays contribute to his inability to write and his decreased fine motor skills. However, Justin demonstrated many strengths
Tommy R. is a 6-year-old boy and a kindergarten student in a K-8 combined elementary and junior high school in the San Jose greater metropolitan area. There has been a meeting requested by his educational team and parents to talk about his behavior in school and cognitive abilities in the classroom. School staff have been receiving complaints from Tommy’s teacher and classroom staff about not following direction and non-compliance. Tommy also struggles with completing some classroom tasks as well.
His attention span ha doesn't develop all the way yet because he didn’t last long at anything he was playing with. He was acting like a two year old where everything is his so he took over what the other children had without asking. With the social and emotional he was doing a lot of side by side play and not playing as interacting with the other children. He had fun playing by his self, but beside someone. He was using his physical motor skills, climbing up the climber just not making a good choice the way he was climbing. He was using fine motor to hold on to the toy and climb at the same time. He was using his hand and eye coordination to do the activities at he was playing with like the cars and poring the toys out the box. He had great motor skills moving along the classroom and picking where he wanted to go on. The language skills I really could not pick up on because he was not verbal just playing. Look like he was lacking in the language I heard another child being vocal asking the teacher what she was holding a conversation. He was helping his self to whatever he wanted didn’t need know help just playing and watching his friends. When he was parallel play, he was following the other child was doing. Typical Develop: The typical development that I noticed with Nick was the parallel play with the other children and not playing together. For 24 months the children “Enjoy being next to children of the same age and shows interest in playing with them, perhaps giving a toy to another child.” (Groark, McCarthy, &Kirk, 2014) Also with his language he did not do much talking just playing and the teacher should have talk to him more. He should have been talking to the other children but since he is at the parallel play he would be talking with just playing. I saw things I need and typical kids doing every day trying new things and things
Her kindergarten teacher recognized her inability to stay focused compared to her peers. In first grade, Grace took longer to complete assignments, had a tendency to daydream, and had difficulty with paper and pencil tasks which was the most noticable in math. Her first and second grade teachers provided her with additional educational support through small group instruction, and she receives weekly instruction from the reading specialist. Finally, her scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition and Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement show she has deficits in the areas of Working Memory, Passage Comprehension and Math Fluency. Since information has been obtained by a variety of dependable sources, identifying Grace as a learning disable child is
When Sean was 6 was referred to the Paediatric Occupational Therapist as the school was concern regarding Sean’s fine motor skills and the parents had concerns regarding his concentrations. The findings were that Sean’s motor coordination skills were within average for his age group. They also found that Sean has difficulties with concentrating and attending to activities, has poor confidence in his ability and has difficulties in visual perception, impacting on his
Writing is a complex social and cognitive process and requires fine motor coordination. Students with learning disabilities (LD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) struggle with remembering what to write, rules involved in writing, or facts needed for the writing prompt. Students with LD and ADHD require explicit and direct instruction in writing. In Head Start, we use a program called Handwriting without Tears. Handwriting without Tears is a scientifically based program used to teach young children how to form letters using a variety of methods. Many students with LD and ADHD struggle to learn the mechanics of writing, such as capitalization, rules such as I before E except after C, or write about scattered facts they have
Activities of daily living are the main focus of an Occupational Therapist. When people are doing their habits and routines do not think about the way they do something or why they are doing it in a certain way. An Occupational Therapist, however, will watch a person perform an activity and think on the steps he/she is taking and the reason behind the way they are performing it. For OTs, the way people perform a certain task or how they behave is extremely important because according to the theorists of behavior, motor control, and cognitive development each individual most perform and behave according to their stage in life. OT is all about client-centered care and if they would not know how a person is supposed to behave at a certain age how would they realize there is something wrong. In this paper, we are going to try to implement those theories in the behavior of a child.
Cahill, S. M., Egan, B. E., Wallingford, M., Huber-Lee, C., & Dess-Mcguire, M. (2015). Results of a school-based evidence-based practice initiative. American Journal of Occupational Therapy,
For my third observation, I observed three-year old (almost four) Greyson in a in-home daycare setting. I have known Greyson for about tow years now, and he has come a long way-but still has a long way to go. Greyson is always getting into trouble in one way or another. He is a very physical child. He plays rough and does not know his limits and own strength. During my observation, I noticed that he seems behind with his printing development. He used varied pencil grips and scribbles, where at his age he should have an adult like grip and be able to control his drawings. He struggles with fine motor skills like pencil gripping. Greyson is also always moving. He cannot sit still. During story time, he would fidget in his chair and constantly be changing positions. He also ways always doing something with his hands. They would be in his mouth, or tapping on the table, or fiddling with a crayon. Greyson is a daydreamer. He cannot seem to pay attention to something for longer than about ten seconds. He requires a lot or redirection and reminders from adults. His daycare provider had to redirect him verbally to the story about 5 times. Greyson also requires scaffolding.
Harding Middle School is located on the north side of Des Moines. It’s a school with over seven hundred students, making it one of the larges middle schools in Des Moines. The middle school is a diverse school with many ethnicities and cultures from different parts of the world. The student population that attend the school are among the poorest in the Des Moines school district. It’s a school that sees behavioral problems among students. Among staff members, there are several hall monitors that monitor student safety and behavior during the school day. The nurse’s office is one of the busiest areas of the school, averaging sixty students per day. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to use clinical judgements and evidence base practice to analyze the effects of the determinants of health at Harding Middle School.
Avigayil is a 8 year old girl who presents with deficits in the areas of: grapho-motor skills, muscle strength, endurance, sensory processing skills, motor coordination, and social skills. Based on his performance in the assessment, Occupational Therapy is being recommended to address and improve the listed areas of concern, so that Avigayil can function more independently at school, home, and when out in the community.
This study examines the effectiveness of cognitive versus multisensory interventions in improving handwriting legibility of children in the first and second grade who were referred for school-based occupational therapy. Two findings would impact school based occupational therapists’ practice, and these findings well reflect the development theory and the motor learning theory.
It is evident from the literature in occupational therapy, education, and neuroscience that effective sensory integration is necessary for a child’s participation in school activities and successful academic performance.
The years before kindergarten are among the most crucial time in a young child’s life to learn. School readiness, a multidimensional concept, has the ability to convey advantages in academic success in school. Children who enter school with early skills in math and reading tend to have more academic success, attain higher levels of education, and have a higher chance of securing employment (1). Their ability to recognize letters, read words in a book, write their own name, and count numbers are all factors that display early literacy and cognitive development, and in the past years, the number of young children with these qualities has increased over time. During the beginning years of a child's life, whether it’s from socioeconomics, ethnicity, daycare, or all of them combined, multiple factors influence a child’s readiness for school.
The intent of this initiative was to alleviate things like childhood hunger, poor health care, illness, and a lack of community support (National Education Goals Panel, 1999). The initiative tasked families, schools, and communities to work together in support of those in need (National Education Goals Panel, 1999). According to the National Education Goals Panel (1999), with each goal statement a different emphasis within education was highlighted, but particularly in Goal #1, readiness was specifically addressed. It was inherently part of Goal #1 to ensure young children begin school with a set of readiness skills in place. Goal #1 went on to define school readiness, stating school readiness involved understanding basic academic skills, but should be coupled with physical well-being and social skills (National Education Goals Panel, 1999). The term readiness was expanded beyond student ability to include helping families and improving home environments.
This article focuses on the benefits of occupational therapy (OT) and sensory integration (SI) how they can improve behaviors at a developmental age. The article speaks about a four-year old boy, who from a young age suffered from difficulties with sensory integration that impacted his every day routine. This included hypersensitivities to auditory, tactile, vestibular stimuli. He was referred to occupational therapy for the sensory integration approach. It was then where he was given the Sensory Profile to establish goals. It was recommended that the client attend OT-SI session for 10 weeks. Over time, the client significantly improved in all set goals, by slowing introducing feeding, gross motor and tactile interventions. His sensory processing is now at a typical level for his age group.