June 20, 2014
Issue 25, Volume 7
 
It's All About the Choices!     
          
Greetings and Happy Friday!

Please enjoy our weekly newsletter.  This issue is the second of our "summer vacation" editions which contains stories from our archives that have not yet been featured in our newsletter. 
 
News Items:
  • Fire Safety Project for People with Down Syndrome Goes Global
  • New Treatment for Tourette's Syndrome Changes Boy's Life
  • Longer Breastfeeding Tied to Better Development
  • Behavioral Therapy May Treat Migraines in Kids, Teens 
PediaStaff News and Resources
  • PediaStaff Jobs of the Week:  Bilingual SLPs - Houston, TX
  • Ask PediaStaff:  One Page Resume or Two?
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
  • OT Activity of the Week:  Fine Motor and Visual Perception Activity
  • "Greatest Hits" from Pinterest - More Ways to Modify Candyland for Therapy
  • More Greatest Hits from Pinterest - Flipping Beanbags!
  • App of the Week: Answering TherAppy
  • PediaStaff Resource of the Week:  Interview Like a Pro

Articles and Special Features 

  • SLP Corner: Music, Rhythm, and Their Potential Benefits for Childhood Apraxia of Speech
  • Pediatric Therapy Corner:  Combining Therapies to Treat Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)
  • OT Corner: Clinic and Home Activities for Developing Fine Motor Control
  • Parents' Corner: Connecting and Building Relationships with Parents for Better Outcomes in the Children You Work With
  • Worth Repeating: Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, an Introduction
  • Also Worth Repeating: Why It's so Important for Parents to be Involved in their Child's Speech Therapy
Feel free to contact us with any questions about our openings or items in these pages. Have you discovered our RSS feed? Click on the orange button below to subscribe to all our openings and have them delivered to your Feed Reader!  Don't have an RSS Feed Reader set up? Sign up at Blogtrottr and have our blog posts delivered right to your email.

Have a great weekend and Take Care!

Heidi Kay and the PediaStaff Team
The Career Center

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Recent Occupational Therapist and COTA Jobs 

School Psychologist Jobs 

Feel Good Story:  Fire Safety Project for People with Down Syndrome Goes Global

[Source:  Special Ed Post]
 

A course which teaches fire safety skills and awareness to young people and adults with Down syndrome in Essex could be rolled out across the UK and beyond, after it won national recognition as a runner-up for partnership excellence in the Guardian's public services awards.

 

Essex county fire and rescue service has produced a free Firebreaks training package for other fire services if they are interested in offering the five-day accredited course to young people in their own district. The Down Syndrome Association charity has brought the scheme to the attention of its global arm, Down Syndrome International, so that other fire services across the world can adopt the Essex model.

Tourette's Syndrome in the News: New Treatment for Tourette Syndrome Changes Boy's Life

Source:  ABC News 

 

Robbie Lettieri calls the decade he lived with Tourette syndrome a "nightmare."

"I try not to think about it," said Lettieri, who was diagnosed with the neurobiological disorder that brings on sudden uncontrollable motor tics at the age of 7.

 

Lettieri's case was so severe - tics that would last for hours and sometimes ended in broken bones - that his neurologist recommended deep-brain stimulation, an experimental procedure that requires surgically implanting a device deep in the brain. With the switch of a button, the device emits electric impulses to specific parts of the brain that help to control the misfirings that could be causing the tremors.

 

Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog

Pediatric Development in the News:  Longer Breastfeeding Tied to Better Development  

[Source: Reuters]

 

Children who were breastfed for more than six months scored the highest on cognitive, language and motor development tests as toddlers, in a new study from Greece.

 

Earlier research tied breastfeeding to better thinking and memory skills. But how it's related to language skills and movement and coordination had been less clear.

 

The new study doesn't prove breastfeeding is responsible for better development, but it shows a strong association, researchers said.

 

Most evidence "pretty clearly shows there are significant medical benefits of breast-feeding," Dr. Dimitri Christakis told Reuters Health in an email.

 

Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog

Pediatric Headaches in the News:  Behavioral Therapy May Treat Migraines in Kids, Teens 

[Source:  Reuters] 

 

Children and teens with chronic migraines may find headache relief when they pair medication with psychotherapy, according to a new study.

 

Researchers found that kids who received cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of psychotherapy that teaches relaxation and coping techniques, had significantly fewer days with headaches.

 

"This is a learning based treatment in a sense that you as a young person can learn skills and apply them to everyday life," Dr. Scott Powers said.

 

Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog

PediaStaff Jobs of the Week:  Bilingual SLPs - Houston, TX  

PediaStaff is accepting resumes for a Bilingual (Spanish, English)  Speech-Language Pathologist to join the Speech Teams for the  2014-2015 School Year in the Houston, TX area!   If you are a Speech Pathologist with your Cs...or a New Grad ready to enter your profession....apply today to obtain a confidential interview and explore this school-based job opportunity!  

 

Come join our team of professionals, dedicated to providing the very best  care to the students of the Houston area!  We offer a very competitive benefits package with pay to match!  Whether you desire to live closer to down town...or may desire the suburban lifestyle, PediaStaff  has the "right" job for you!

 

Read More About These Openings on Our Blog

Ask PediaStaff:  One Page Resume or Two?  

Question:  "I am a recent graduate with my Masters in Occupational Therapy.    One of our professors recommended that we keep our resume/CV to one page.   In my case though, I worked for 3 years as a Behavioral Interventionist with children with autism before I started grad school.   

 

In addition, I have several excellent externships/clinicals during my Masters that I would like to mention. Should I include my pre-masters experience, or ditch it and stay with the single page?"

 

Answer:  The one page resume convention, is just that - a rule of thumb, and is not something that should be set in stone.   If you have experience that pre-dates your degree and is highly relevant to your career path  - and in your case it IS - by all means include it in your resume and go to two pages.    But still be stingy with your word count!

OT Activity of the Week:  Fine Motor and Visual Perception Activity  

Thank You Margaret Rice and Your Therapy Source for this fantastic fine motor skills and visual perception activity. Fantastic idea, as usual, Margaret!

 

Watch the Video for This Activity on our Blog

More "Greatest Hits" from Pinterest:  Flipping Beanbags!  

Thanks to Your Therapy Source for recommending this Pinterest goodie - Flipping Bean Bags for Wrist Strengthening!  This great Motor Skill activity was first blogged about by Amy of the Wonder Years blog. She added a bit of stitching to the beanbags so she could be sure that the child flipped them

 

Learn More About this Great Activity Through our Blog

Featured App of the Week:  Answering TherAppy  

Like I said in my review of Asking TherAppy, answering questions can be a difficult task for children (and adults) with expressive/receptive language and cognitive delays/disorders. The issue could be that they don't understand the question, or they're unable to generate an appropriate answer. I feel like I see so many students with question-answering goals on my speech therapy caseload in the public schools. Tactus Therapy Solutions saw the need and rose to the occasion by creating Answering TherAppy.

 

Learn About This App Through a Link on our Blog

PediaStaff Resource of the Week:  Interview Like a Pro: The Pediatric Therapy Clinician's Guide  

This past November, we created a four-part updated interview guide that was met with excellent reception.   We thought we would share it with you here again!

Read "Interview Like a Pro:  The Pediatric Therapy Clinician's Guide on our Blog

SLP Corner: Music, Rhythm, and Their Potential Benefits for Childhood Apraxia of Speech

By: Kimberly Sena Moore, MM, NMT-F, MT-BC

 

Children are little creative scientists. If you ever watch a child, they experiment, test, draw, sing, dance, imagine, and play their way to learning. This is true for almost any type of learning they need, from learning the alphabet to learning how to throw a ball, learning right from wrong, and learning first words.

 

Music is one of the ways through which children learn. In fact, music itself is such a powerful tool for learning and growing that there's an entire profession dedicated to it: Music Therapy.

According to the American Music Therapy Association (2010), "Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a 

 

Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog

Pediatric Therapy Corner: Combining Therapies to Treat Auditory Processing Disorder (APD)

By: Julia Harper, M.S., OTR/L and Aimee Levin Weiner, Au.D.

 

Introduction

Many before us have suggested the use of sound stimulation (Tomatis) and the combination of sound stimulation and sensorimotor activities (Frick and Hacker) as effective strategies for treating processing disorders. In this paper we discuss the combination of a specific sensorimotor approach, the H.O.P.E. Method, and an auditory program, Integrated Listening Systems, as an effective means to treating children with these types of processing disorders.

 

The H.O.P.E. method (Harper's Optimal Protocols for Enrichment) is a unique program that focuses on the systematic and structured application of existing, evidence-based treatment techniques. Designed by Julia Harper, MS,OTR/L, a pediatric occupational therapist, it is a treatment planning tool and a clinical decision making guide for therapists while functioning as a road map to effective therapy for parents.

 

Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog

OT Corner: Clinic and Home Activities for Developing Fine Motor Control

By: Loren Shlaes, OTR, Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique

As we develop, the thumb and forefinger {the radial portion} separate out from the rest of the hand and perform the fine motor functions. The pinkie, or ulnar, portion of the hand is responsible for strength, like using a hammer, and for sustained grasp, like holding a bag.

As the fingers strengthen, arches form in the palm. If you pull your fingers and thumb in closely, you can see two distinct arches. One forms along the knuckles that connect the fingers to the palm. The other runs along the lengths of the fingers. These two arches are what allow the palm to


Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog


Parents' Corner: Connecting and Building Relationships with Parents for Better Outcomes in the Children You Work With

By: Joan Celebi, Ed.M., CLC

 

It's well known that when professionals who work with children build strong relationships with parents, better outcomes are often the result. But how do you go about connecting with parents to forge meaningful, long-lasting partnerships? It's not always obvious or intuitive, even to the best or most experienced professionals.

 

I've been on both sides - both professional and parent. In my days as a high school teacher, invariably my students improved in all kinds of ways when I took the initiative to reach out to their 

 

Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog


Worth Repeating: Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, an Introduction

[Source:  The School Psych Toolbox]  

 

This is both my area of interest and expertise, so you can expect several blogs in the future focusing on aspects of this disability targeting an audience with varying knowledge levels. This particular blog is to be considered an introduction and focuses on characteristics, risk factors, and cultural/economic factors with more in depth topics to come.

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