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October 9, 2015
Issue 40, Volume 8
It's All About the Choices!
Greetings and Happy Friday!
Please enjoy our weekly newsletter!
News Items:
- Brain's Face Recognition Ability Has "Special Status" Likely to be Heritable
- Study Suggests Pre School Treatment for Selective Mutism Yields Better Results
- Laws in 25 States Put the Brakes on High School Bullying
- Repetitive Training Contraindicated for People with Autism
- Pre-K Efforts in Dallas Yielding "Meteoric Lift" in Student Preparedness
- Researchers Describe Mechanism Behind Progeria
Hot Jobs
- Placement of the Week: Outpatient/EI Occupational Therapist in Indiana!
- Hot Job: School Psychologist Job - Buffalo Grove, IL
- Hot Job! Pediatric Occupational Therapist - San Francisco, CA
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
- Activity of the Week: Patterning and Sequencing with Spiders
- Activity of Week: Touch, Feel and Sort Halloween Friends
- Another Sensory and Fine Motor Activity: Corn Shucking
- Pinterest Pin of the Week: Autumn Inferencing
Articles and Special Features
- OT Corner: Client-Centered Practice in Pediatrics
- School Nurse's Corner: Emergency Preparedness and Response in the School Setting
- School Based Clinician's Corner: Two Kinds of Parent-Teacher Conferences
- SLP Corner: Scatterplots and Speech Therapy
- Special Ed Corner: Talk Less and Listen More in the Special Ed Classroom
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
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Have a great weekend and Take Care!
Heidi Kay and the PediaStaff Team
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The Career Center
The links to the right are "live" and reflect the most recent SLP, OT, PT and related assistant jobs, and ALL our Bilingual and School Psychology Jobs.
To further narrow your search by state,
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Brain's Face Recognition Ability Has "Special Status"
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[Source: Medical X-Press]
There is seemingly no cognitive load associated with the near-instantaneous recognition of individual faces. Indeed, facial recognition is so innate and so obviously critical to human social exchange that researchers have long hypothesized that this ability has a "special status" independent of general cognitive ability, and that it is likely to be a highly heritable trait.
Many cognitive abilities-including literacy, spatial reasoning, and mathematical ability-are correlated with general cognitive ability. These traits, along with general cognitive ability, are considered to be heritable and pleiotropic-that is, influenced by a set of common genes. Recent studies involving sets of twins have suggested that face recognition could be an exception to this rule.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
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Study Suggests Pre School Treatment for Selective Mutism
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Editor's Note: Thank You, Vera Joffe, PhD for this link!
[Source: NIH via Vera Joffe]
Recently, the first prospective follow-up study conducted 1 year after the end of a cognitive behavioral treatment for children with SM was published (Oerbeck et al., 2015). Authors found that children who are treated in a younger age are more likely to show 100% success, i.e., they are more likely to not qualify for the diagnosis of Selective Mutism one year later: 78% of younger children (3 to 5 years old) did not qualify for the diagnosis of SM one year later at follow up, as compared to 33% older children (6-9 years of age) who did not qualify for the diagnosis.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
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Laws in 25 States Put the Brakes on High School Bullying
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[Source: Medical X Press]
In the most comprehensive study of the effectiveness of anti-bullying policies to date, researchers found that compliance with the U.S. Department of Education guidelines in antibullying laws reduced rates of bullying and cyberbullying-the most common forms of peer aggression. The study, which uncovered varying rates of bullying reported across the states, has important implications for educators, policy makers, and researchers. Findings will appear online in JAMA Pediatrics.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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Repetitive Training Contraindicated for People with Autism
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[Source: Psych Central]
Emerging research suggests a traditional way of learning may be the wrong approach for those with autism.
Learning new behaviors or skills is often challenging for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as they have trouble transferring a learned skill or information to a new context.
For example, children with autism can be taught what a dog is by showing them a picture of a dog and repeating the word "dog" over and over. But, when they are then taught what a cat is or even shown another type of dog, the previous knowledge does not transfer, and they have to learn this information from scratch.
Now, a new study published in Nature Neuroscience shows that training individuals with ASD to acquire new information by repeating the information actually harms their ability to apply that learned knowledge to other situations.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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Pre-K Efforts in Dallas Yielding "Meteoric Lift" for Students
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[Source: Dallas Morning News]
Just a few years ago, only about one in three Dallas kindergartners started school on grade level. Most were up to a year behind their peers, which experts say is difficult to make up.
So starting in 2013, Dallas began overhauling prekindergarten to build a stronger curriculum, enroll more students and provide teachers with more focused training and support so that the district would have a high-quality program.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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Researchers Describe Mechanism Behind Progeria
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[Source: Medical X-Press]
Progeria, a premature aging disease, is the research focus of Roland Foisner's team at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna. Children suffering from progeria die at an average age of 14 to 15 years, often from heart attacks and strokes. So far, there is no cure for the disease, and though researchers identified the abnormal protein behind the disease - progerin - the exact way in which it causes the accelerated aging remains elusive. In their latest publication inGenes & Development, Roland Foisner and his group describe a yet unknown mechanism behind progeria that may provide new approaches for therapy.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
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Congratulations to Nicole B., on her new position through PediaStaff as a Pediatric and Early Intervention OT!
Nicole will be working in a wonderful historic town with a very low cost of living. She will be using sensory integration and oral motor experience and will be seeing children on the autism spectrum or who have sensory integration or behavioral issues. The position offers a lot of variety. Mornings typically are spent doing Early Intervention in the homes, and afternoons are spent in the clinic.
What a great find, Nicole! Congratulations to you!
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School has begun and we are in need of a School Psychologist! Our client is a school district near Buffalo Grove in need of a School Psychologist to work full time, most likely through the end of the school year. You would work at one location, a middle school (grades 6-8). Hourly rates are competitive and based on experience. Current license and state certification required. Previous school experience necessary.
Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog |
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We are hiring Pediatric Occupational Therapists looking for an opportunity to serve kiddos in the San Francisco Bay area in several markets. These positions are full time and offer benefits and reimbursements or can be paid on an independent contractor basis. The settings are a combination of the home (early intervention (small percentage)), school (educational), and clinic (medical) environments. A majority of our caseload in need of coverage is between San Francisco and San Mateo;
Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog |
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[Source: Pre-K Pages]
Making patterns with spiders is a seasonal and fun way to teach patterning!
I am always looking for fun things I can use as manipulatives for learning activities, so when I found spider rings in the dollar store I knew they would be perfect for a fun math activity.
While participating in this activity, children can explore what patterns are, how to complete a pattern, and how to make patterns of their own. The patterns can be as simple or complex as you would like and can be tailored to the specific needs of each child.
Check out this Activity Through a Link on our Blog |
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[Source: Miss Mancy's Blog]
Halloween is a great time to push children's sensory boundaries! There are so many gooey, gross activities you can do with them. I like to start with something simple that may feel a little odd to some children but definitely works on their tactile discrimination skills. This means they use their fingers to find their way around.
We have all made sensory bags in the past, but I usually like to combine this with a specific task especially for children that have tactile defensiveness issues, when they are aware of a beginning and an end to the activity or task, they are more apt to participate. Otherwise just asking them to touch and feel a medium that is aversive to them may be easily overwhelming.
Learn All About this Activity Through our Blog |
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[The Jenny Evolution and Sensory Spectrum]
A corn sensory table doesn't have to be a formal event. And you certainly don't need a sensory table, either! All you need is some newspaper (because you don't want those corn silks all over the place) and a garbage bag to throw the husks into when you're done playing.
Learn More Through our Blog |
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[Primary Inspiration via Pinterest]
Here's a seasonal freebie for you that will have your K-2 students determining key details in 24 riddles, applying their prior knowledge, and inferring the answers.
These riddles are a form of informational text, featuring autumn social studies and science topics, including apples, Johnny Appleseed, Columbus, fire safety, pumpkins, leaves, autumn months, bats, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.
Download this Freebie Through a Link on our Blog |
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OT Corner:
Client-Centered Practice in Pediatrics
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[Source: Handwriting is Fun]
by Katherine Collmer, OTR/L
In recent years, the role of OT, in general, has been changing with the waves of healthcare and education reforms. Despite a certain amount of turmoil and confusion where those changes may have thrown us a curve ball, most often they have provided us with an opportunity to make a difference in an area in which we've longed to see an improvement. Client involvement is an excellent example of a concept that can turn the tide in school-based and pediatric practice. Although this concept is relatively new in pediatrics, it remains an important one to embrace as we enter this new generation of healthcare and education perspectives. In that light, this week's article focuses upon the concepts that define a client-centered therapeutic approach and the implications for its use in all facets of occupational therapy, including pediatrics and in the school
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School Nurse's Corner:
Emergency Preparedness and Response
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[Source NASN]
It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) that the registered professional school nurse (hereinafter referred to as school nurse) provides leadership in all phases of emergency preparedness and response. School nurses are a vital part of the school team responsible for developing emergency response procedures for the school setting using an all-hazards approach.
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School Clinician's Corner:
Two Kinds of Parent-Teacher Conferences
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[Source: Edutopia]
We just celebrated open house night at our high school and, as usual, the principal announced that this night was not a night to chat with parents about how their students were doing in our classes. We were supposed to describe our course and provide a syllabus for the visiting parents.
Sure, parents want to know about what their child is learning, but the real question they all have is, "How is my Humberto doing in your class?" So, what do I tell the parent or guardian? "Sorry, I can't talk about Humberto now, come back later?" Rather than do that, I made a compromise. As I described the class goals, I told the parents a bit about their child's successes in my class and explained how they could help their child have more success at home. Voilà! Mini-parent conferences.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
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SLP Corner:
Scatterplots and Speech Therapy
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[Source: Developmental Phonological Disorders]
I have been looking for an opportunity to try out this neat spread sheet for creating scatterplots as an alternative to the standard bar graph as a way of presenting the results of a treatment trial. This week the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology posted our manuscript "A randomized trial of twelve-week interventions for the treatment of developmental phonological
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Special Ed Corner:
Talk Less and Listen More in the Classroom
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[Source: Autism Classroom Resources]
Have you ever thought about the importance of being quiet in your classroom? We all know the importance of modeling language for learners with language disorders and this often makes us think that we need to be talking all the time in our classrooms. Couple that with the need to provide reminders and prompts and often times we find ourselves talking throughout the day.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog
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Please Note: The views and advice expressed in articles, videos and other pieces published in this newsletter are not necessarily the views and advice of PediaStaff or its employees but rather that of the author. PediaStaff is not endorsing or implying agreement with the views or advice contained therein, rather presenting them for the independent analysis and information of its readers.
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