 |
February 19, 2016
Issue 7, Volume 9
It's All About the Choices!
Greetings and Happy Friday
Please enjoy our current newsletter
News Items:
- Researcher Calls for Changes to Auditory Environment in NICU
- Stem Cell Gene Therapy Could Be Key for DMD
- Language Juggling Rewires Bilingual Brain
- Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm Moves Individual 'Fingers'
- Sleep Troubles Tied to Greater Behavior Problems in Autism
- Bullied Preemies Significantly More Likely to Have Lasting Mental Illness into Adulthood
Hot Jobs
- School Occupational Therapist or COTA - Auburn, NY
- Hot Job: Early Intervention Speech-Language Pathologist - Georgetown DE
- Placement of the Week: CF-SLP Wasilla, AK
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
- App Review: Avaz FreeSpeech
- Snowflake Gross Motor Learning
- St. Patrick's Day Barrier Speech and Language Game
- DIY Cat Toy: A Fun Craft for Kids!
Articles and Special Features
- SLP Corner: Improve Vocabulary Retention with Multicultural Students
- Pediatric Therapy Corner: 5 Things to do BEFORE You Write an IEP Goal
- PT Corner: Low Tone and Growth Spurts
- School Psych Corner: Psychological Trauma and the Brain
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
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,
setting, bilingual, or term, use the
check boxes drop down menus.
If a particular search is returning
no hits it is possible that we do
not currently have new openings for
you with that selection criteria.
To see ALL our openings
click HERE and further narrow your search.
|
|
|
|
|
Researcher Calls for Changes to Auditory Environment in NICU
|
[Source: Medical X Press]
Amir Lahav, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, gave a presentation at this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science recently, outlining what he described as premature babies being put into 'dungeon' incubators as they mature in hospital intensive care units-he believes the experience leads to learning disabilities for such children.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Stem Cell Gene Therapy Could Be Key for DMD
|
[Source: Medical News Today]
Scientists at the UCLA Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research and Center for Duchenne
Muscular Dystrophy at UCLA have developed a new approach that could eventually be used to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The
stem cell gene therapy could be applicable for 60 percent of people with Duchenne, which affects approximately 1 in 5,000 boys in the U.S. and is the most common fatal childhood genetic disease.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Language Juggling Rewires Bilingual Brain
|
[Source: Medical News Today]
Bilinguals use and learn language in ways that change their minds and brains, which has consequences -- many positive, according to Judith F. Kroll, a Penn State cognitive scientist.
"Recent studies reveal the remarkable ways in which bilingualism changes the brain networks that enable skilled cognition, support fluent language performance and facilitate new learning," said Kroll, Distinguished Professor, psychology, linguistics and women's studies.
Researchers have shown that the brain structure
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm Moves Individual 'Fingers'
|
[Source: Medical News Today]
Physicians and biomedical engineers from Johns Hopkins report what they believe is the first successful effort to wiggle fingers individually and independently of each other using a mind-controlled artificial "arm" to control the movement.
The proof-of-concept feat, described online in the Journal of Neural Engineering, represents a potential advance in technologies to restore refined hand function to those who have lost arms to injury or disease, the researchers say. The young man on whom the experiment was performed was not missing an arm or hand, but he was outfitted with a device that essentially took advantage of a brain-mapping procedure to bypass control of his own arm and hand.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Sleep Troubles Tied to Greater Behavior Problems in Autism
|
|
[Source: Psych Central]
A new study has found that some behavioral problems in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), such as aggression, irritability and attention problems, may be due to a lack of sleep rather than the disorder itself.
The findings show that children with autism who wake up frequently during the night have the most difficulty regulating their own behavior during the day, according to the researchers from the University of Missouri.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Bullied Preemies More Likely to Have Lasting Mental Illness
|
[Source: Science Daily]
Not only that, but the more they were bullied as children, the more likely they are to develop problems such as depression, anxiety, antisocial behavior or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as adults, says a new study from McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
|
'PediaStaff is searching for an Occupational Therapist or COTA to work in a school based setting near the beautiful Finger Lake Region of New York. The position is based in Auburn. You will have the opportunity to work with children in grades K-12. Part time and full time caseload schedules are available on either a contract or direct hire basis. The schedules are flexible and you may consider short or long term assignments. The opportunity to work in other pediatric settings may be an option over time.
Learn More / Apply for this Job on our Blog |
|
|
We are searching for a dedicated pediatric speech therapist for the Georgetown, DE area who enjoys working in a community based setting treating kids with disabilities. Speech and hearing therapy services focus on enhancing or restoring limited or lost communicative skills or swallowing capabilities lost due to trauma, disease, aging or congenital abnormality. Our licensed speech therapists incorporate the use of special facilitory techniques, augmentative and assistive equipment, therapeutic
Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog
|
|
|
Congratulations to Lacey K., on her Clinical Fellowship assignment through PediaStaff in the gorgeous state of Alaska!!
Lacey will be working for a growing pediatric outpatient clinic is looking to expand its staff. She will get to make her own schedule, since the clinic is open and available to be used from 7am-7pm and everyone's schedule varies according to what they want. The company has fantastic benefits including retirement with matching!
Not bad! Not bad at all, Lacey. Have a safe move and good luck!
|
|
|
|
[Source: Smart Apps for Kids]
I'm not sure what I expected when I was assigned Avaz FreeSpeech to review. We all know Avaz as a developer of premier AAC apps to help children with special needs communicate. And I have to admit, I was a little bit intimidated to be reviewing one of their apps. I needn't have worried, though, because Avaz FreeSpeech is NOT an AAC app (or not only and AAC app). Instead, it's a tool to help children at all learning stages with varying levels of communication skills choose individual components (represented by pictures) and turn them into grammatically correct sentences.
Read the Rest of this Review on Our Blog |
|
Snowflake Gross Motor Learning
|
|
[Source: Playing with Words 365]
So this past week, I saw two similar activities that I really LOVED. The first one, is from Roots of Simplicity. She created a great gross motor reading activity by writing words on snowflakes and taping them to the ground (check out her post for details). Then, Emma at Mummy Mummy Mum linked up a very similar activity using dinosaur foot prints that I just had to feature this week at Thrifty Thursday.
Learn More About This Activity Through a Link on our Blog |
|
St. Patrick's Day Barrier Speech and Language Game
|
[Source: Gold Country SLP via Speechie Freebies]
Here is a portable, easy-prep activity you can use with most of your caseload. You can target all expressive language goals from describing to formulating sentences and questions.
Give each student one copy of the board containing a variety of pictures associated with St. Patrick's Day. Put a barrier (such as a file folder) between them so they can't see each other's boards. One student chooses a picture on his/her board. The other student asks yes/no questions until they are able to determine the chosen picture. As each picture is eliminated, cover with one of the flag squares or a bingo chip.
Learn More About This Activity Through a Link on our Blog |
|
DIY Cat Toy: A Fun Craft for Kids!
|
[Source: Pediatric Occupational Therapy Tips]
This adorable "cat scratch toy" is a fun craft for kids. It's fairly simple to make, and it requires fine motor skills and dexterity, which make it therapeutic! Anyone who has a kitten or cat will be motivated to make this for their pet.
Learn More About This Activity Through a Link on our Blog |
|
|
|
|
SLP Corner:
Improve Vocab Retention with Multicultural Students
|
Source: Bilinguistics
Working to improve vocabulary retention is extremely important in the academic setting. If a child uses, remembers, or lists new vocabulary, then general education teachers have data to show that a child is learning. Many of their formal tests, quizzes, and assignments are arranged around the "
vocabulary that a child should know
."However, with a child who has low vocabulary, how do we know if he is struggling because of:
- Limited exposure (Socio-economic Status)
- Second language influence
- Language disorder
- Learning disability
|
|
Peds Therapy Corner:
5 Things to do BEFORE You Write an IEP Goal
|
[Source: Your Therapy Source]
It is that time of year again when annual reviews will slowly start to begin. Here are 5 things to do before you write an IEP goal:
1. Check present levels of performance - Perform a new evaluation if it is necessary. Determine the student's strengths and weaknesses. When you formulate a goal try to build on strengths to offset weaknesses.
|
|
PT Corner:
Low Tone and Growth Spurts
|
[Source: Starfish Therapies]
We frequently have children of all ages in the clinic who have been diagnosed with low muscle tone (hypotonia). This can often be confusing for parents and difficult to explain to others so we wrote
'What Does Low Tone Mean?' to help with that explanation.
Recently, my coworkers and I were talking about a few babies/children who we were seeing who have low tone and how we could see the progress they were making but it was often hard for the parents to not only see but to understand why it might possibly be taking 'so long' or longer than other children.
As a sidebar, I love having other therapists around to discuss the kids we are lucky enough to work with. By discussing the kids, we are able to help pull the pieces of information and ideas we have in our head and synthesize them into something that makes sense and we can explain to others! What came out of our discussion is:
Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog
|
|
School Psych Corner:
Psychological Trauma and the Brain
|
[Source the Trauma and Mental Health Report]
Neuroscientists over the last few decades have discovered how trauma and fear affect the brain, especially the impact of experiences on child neurodevelopment. The brain adjusts to patterned-repetitive experiences that are understood through our senses. Nurturing environments result in healthy growth, while traumatic experiences result in unhealthy neurodevelopment.
|
| Did You Get This From a Friend? Sign Up For Your Copy of This Newsletter! |
Would you like pediatric and school-based therapy tips, resources, articles, and news delivered to your computer once a week? Sign up here for our newsletter!
Sign up HERE
|
Quick Links to PediaStaff
|
|
|
| If you would like to opt out of receiving this newsletter, there is a link located in the footer below. However, please note that once you've opted out, we will be unable to send you any future correspondence via newsletter. |
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.
|
|
|
