ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

I want to encourage people who are interested in updates on EI and other issues to follow our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ABC.Therapeutics I'll be posting brief updates there more often than I update the blog - which I generally reserve for longer rants or conversations. Blog traffic has spiked the last couple days so I know there are a lot of people out there looking for information. The best information that I have available currently is that Senator Ranzenhofer's office confirmed to me that the EI rates have been cut 5%. In brief Facebook exchanges with NYSOTA they are also reporting the same information. A digital news service that covers NYC news is also reporting similar information. I spoke with people in the NYSDOH and EI programs specifically and they are keeping their lips sealed for now. A 5% cut is better than the originally proposed 10% cut, but it will still create additional challenges for providers who are still accommodating to the 10% cut tha...

I encourage everyone to open up the current American Journal of Occupational Therapy and read 'Effects of therapy cushions on classroom behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder.' This is a fantastic article that looks at the issue of whether or not seat cushions were effective at promoting 'in seat' and 'on task' behavior. I think this is a fantastic study because it take a very common OT intervention and puts it to the test. For many years OTs have been dispensing seat cushions to children in classrooms based on the thought that the seats provided sensory stimulation that busy children were 'seeking' or that the seats would demand a postural reaction that would promote attention and erect sitting. This has been done for so many years in so many settings that it becomes a common request from teachers who don't know what to do with fidgety children. How many OTs hear the request "Can we try to see if sitting on a seat cushion will ...

If the number of hits to this blog regarding early intervention and the NYS budget are any indication - this is a MAJOR point of concern for therapists. Our traffic has been influenced heavily by this issue in the last month. Also, it is not just NY traffic - people around the country have been watching the proposed budget cuts to the NYS Early Intervention Program. This week the Senate and the Assembly each put forward their own modifications to the budget and the budget reconciliation process begins. Click on the links to get to the respective budget proposals. These documents don't always contain all the actual legislative language so it is sometimes difficult to precisely understand where specific budget lines are reflected. It appears that in the Senate version they are 'concerned' about the EI cuts and they are waiting on information about fund availability to see how they can 'minimize the impact of the Executive Proposal.' The Assembly version is more...

For those who are not aware, IEP Direct is a proprietary Internet-based software package that many school districts use for IEP writing. One value of this kind of tool is that there is more uniformity and subsequent adherence to regulation when IEPs are created in this format. However, a serious negative is that therapists often over-rely on the canned goals that are part of the drop down menus in the software. I am not sure who writes/approves the canned goals in IEP Direct but some of them are rather silly. Being a former full time educator myself I know that academic programs spend quite a bit of time teaching students how to write appropriate goals that are both functional and measurable. Something seems to happen between the classroom and practice because the quality of many goals that I see written for children in school settings is very poor. This is not new but is a perennial rant because the situation does not ever change. Programs like IEP Direct have now compounded the p...

Melissa is a happy three year old. She smiled brightly as she played with the 20 year old bead and wire toy in my waiting room. I am amazed at the durability of this toy that was originally a favorite of my oldest daughter. It has been played with by thousands of children over many years. Melissa talked quietly to herself as she slid the beads along their paths. Some of those paths are rather uniform and follow a predictable and simple geometric trajectory. Other paths twist, turn, climb and dip unexpectedly. All of them begin on one side of the toy and end on the other side of the toy. Melissa's grandmother usually brings her to occupational therapy but her thirty-something year old father also began coming to therapy sessions. He was recently released from prison and a mandatory rehabilitation program. He has a long and repetitive history of substance abuse and criminal behavior. No one knows where the mother is. Based on conversations we have had, Melissa's grandm...