 |
October 23, 2015
Issue 42, Volume 8
It's All About the Choices!
Greetings and Happy Friday
Please enjoy our weekly newsletter offering.
News Items:
- Premature Birth Appears to Weaken Brain Connections
- Early Childhood Stress Affects Brain's Response to Rewards
- Predictors of Self-Injury in Children with Autism
- Apple Lends Hand To Autism Research
- Does Dyslexia Make it Hard to Learn Sounds?
- Program Helps Sustain Learning Gains in Kids From Head Start to Kindergarten
Hot Jobs
- Placement of the Week: School-Based PT in Oregon
- Hot Jobs: Early Intervention SLP and OT Positions in New Mexico!
- Hot Job: Your Alaska Adventure Awaits!
- Hot Job: Pediatric Outpatient OT - Corsicana, TX
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
- SLP / AUD Resource of the Week: Hearing First
- Resource of the Week: The Literacy Center.net
- Instagram Post of the Week: Bag 'O Bones Cereal Therapy Ideas
- OT/PT Tip of the Day: Pool Noodle Quick Fix
Articles and Special Features
- OT Corner: Biters, Chewers, Suckers and Pickers
- Special Ed Corner: Reducing Lawsuits May Mean Focusing on Certain States, Not IDEA
- SLP Corner: 5 Analogies to Help Students Better Understand the Importance of Home Practice
- AAC Corner: Supporting Language Growth in AAC Learners
- Sensory Corner: Find the Right Halloween Costume for a Child with Tactile Sensitivities
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.
|
|
|
|
|
Premature Birth Appears to Weaken Brain Connections
|
Source: Medical World Today]
Babies born prematurely face an increased risk of neurological and psychiatric problems that may be due to weakened connections in brain networks linked to attention, communication and the processing of emotions, new research shows.
A comparison of brain scans from babies born at full term and at least 10 weeks prematurely shows differences in the activity of brain networks. The red and yellow areas represent coordinated activity. In preemies, the red areas are smaller due to less coordinated activity between these regions.
Credit: Washington University School of Medicine
Studying brain scans from premature and full-term babies, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis zeroed in on differences in the brain that may underlie such problems.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Early Childhood Stress Affects Brain's Response to Rewards
|
[Source: Science Daily]
A Duke University-led study has pinpointed how early childhood stress affects the adult brain's response to rewards. Their findings suggest a possible pathway by which childhood stress may increase risk of depression and other mental health problems in adulthood.
Many studies have connected early life stress to later mental health issues for adults, but little is understood about the reasons for this connection. The new study published in the current issue of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the relations between early life stress and reward-related brain activity in adults.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Predictors of Self-Injury in Children with Autism
|
[Source: Best Practice Autism.com]
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently engage in maladaptive behaviors such as aggression and rituals. The most distressing to caregivers and challenging for health care providers are self-injurious behaviors (SIB). These behaviors are classified as any type of action directed towards the self, resulting in physical injury. They are often rhythmic and repetitive and can range from mild head rubbing to severe head banging and may become life threatening. An improved understanding of the incidence and risk factors associated with SIB in autism is needed to develop treatment options.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Apple Lends Hand To Autism Research
|
[Source: Disability Scoop]
Apple is teaming up with autism researchers in an effort to assess whether the iPhone could be used to help identify young children who may be on the spectrum.
The technology giant said this week that autism is one of three new conditions that will be studied through ResearchKit, an open-source framework that allows scientists to collect data via iPhone apps.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Does Dyslexia Make it Hard to Learn Sounds?
|
|
[Source: Futurity]
The way we acquire new skills, such as riding a bike, is called procedural learning, and scientists think it may affect how people with dyslexia learn speech sound categories.
If that's true, difficulty processing speech may be an effect of dyslexia, not its cause.
"Most research on the cause of dyslexia has focused on neurological impairments in processing speech sounds that make up words, and how dyslexic individuals have difficulty learning how to map visual letters to those sounds when they are learning to read," says Lori Holt, a psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Program Helps Sustain Learning Gains in Kids From Head Start to Kindergarten
|
[Source: Science Daily]
An instructional program for parents helps young children retain the literacy skills and positive learning behaviors acquired in Head Start through to the end of the kindergarten year, according to researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The program appears to offset what education researchers call "summer loss," or the tendency of children to forget during summer break what they learned during the previous year.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
|
|
Congratulations to Alice W., of New Jersey who is packing up a back for one of our great school clients in Oregon!
Alice will be working with children ages birth to 5 in home, daycare, and preschool settings in the Greater Portland area. This is a full time (35 hours/week) position.A
Safe Travels, Alice!
|
|
|
|
PediaStaff is hiring Pediatric SLPs for for The Land of Enchantment, in Clovis New Mexico. This is a community-based home-based Early Intervention position providing services and training in the home-environment for the birth-3 population. You may be paid either as an independent contractor or as an employee and be generously compensated. Apply now and see how you can be a part of the team. New Grads are encouraged to apply as there is adequate mentoring and a supportive team environment.
Clovis, a Texas / NM boarder town in western central New Mexico, is a small, family-oriented community with low cost of living.
Learn About / Apply for These Jobs on our Blog |
|
|
If you are looking for a life changing experience as a Speech-Language Pathologist then look no further. Our client has a need for a Speech Therapist to travel to Alaska 9 times throughout school year 2016-2017. The area is very rural. All of your travel expenses would be paid as well as a day rate for each day of service to the districts. Pay is based on speech experience.
Previous school based experience or a strong background is preferred but they will accept a strong new grad. You will have to apply for an Alaska license. You'll have access to other therapists within the schools, but will need to be pretty confident in your skills and able to work independently.
Learn About / Apply for These Jobs on our Blog |
|
|
Growing pediatric outpatient clinic seeks qualified occupational therapist to join their team on a full time or part time basis in Corsicana, TX. You'll work about 50% of the time in the clinic and also work in the school district 50% so the best of both worlds really! Compensation is very competitive for the area and benefits are also available.
The clinic prides itself on offering a sensory approach. Client prefers therapists with knowledge of or experience in SI, ABA and even NDT.
Qualifications: Must hold a Bachelor's Degree in Occupational Therapy; a current state license (or eligible).
Learn About / Apply for These Jobs on our Blog |
|
|
Pediastaff is pleased to share the announcement of a new program and website with a focus on teaching children who are deaf or hard of hearing to listen and talk. Hearing First, an educational endeavor of the Oberkotter Foundation, launched October 6th.
Hearing First is built around the premise that hearing is a foundational building block for children to learn to listen and talk, become healthy readers, and do well in school. As such, it is critical to know the status of a baby's hearing as soon as possible so that parents can access the services they need to achieve their goals for their child.
Learn More Through a Link on our Blog |
|
|
|
The Literacy Center Education Network is a 501 © (3) non-profit organization with a mission to deliver free, professionally-designed, education material to preschool-age children. Utilizing the power of the Internet, they distribute education material directly to children in their homes, libraries, and schools.
The Literacy Center aims to provide safe learning activities for parents and teachers to share with young children. It follows a modified Montessori approach to teaching reading. As a pre and early reading curriculum, it assumes that each online lesson will be supported by appropriate offline instruction, either at home or in school.
Learn More Through a Link on Our Blog |
|
|
Thank you to @communicationwindow for permission to regram her idea from Instagram!
So many OT activities are awesome for language! Our OT had kids make skeletons today out of Bag O Bones Cheetos! Tons of great body part vocabulary and opportunities for requesting!
See it on our Blog |
|
|
|
[Source: Your Therapy Source]
Do you have any students who need just a little extra reminder of where the chair ends? Maybe an external cue of where to put their hips? Check out this great idea from Your Therapy Source
|
|
|
|
|
OT Corner:
Biters, Chewers, Suckers and Pickers
|
Editor's Note: Special Thanks to our friends at Sensory Spectrum for reminding us of this great article by Lindsay Biel
Dear Sensory Smarts,
My lovely 8-year-old daughter likes to bite and suck on the strangest things-pencils, toys, dress hems, books or whatever. She recently began to chew on her !ngernails and cuticles until they are red and raw. I try telling her to stop but she can't seem to help herself. Any suggestions? From, Mother of Mouthy Girl
Dear Mom, Humans are oral creatures. Babies !rst explore toys, !ngers, and other objects with their mouths. "en they start to use their eyes, hands, and other body parts to check out their world. We all continue to self-soothe orally to some degree throughout the lifespan, but usually in socially acceptable
|
|
SpEd Corner:
Reducing Lawsuits May Mean Focusing on Certain States, Not IDEA
|
[Source: Education Week]
The fear of special education lawsuits has, over the years, prompted many organizations to suggest changes for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
But a recent study of special education-related court decisions suggests that reducing lawsuits may be a matter of focusing on a handful of states where most of them are filed-not the 40-year-old law itself.
Ten states are responsible for two-thirds of the IDEA court decisions made between 1979 and 2013, according to "Frequency Trends of Court Decisions Under the Individuals with Disabilities
|
SLP Corner
Help Your Students Better Understand Importance of Home Practice
|
by Erik X. Raj
It's a cliche saying, but it's one that's absolutely true: Practice. Makes. Perfect! Over the last few months, I've been putting a lot of thought into how I can better encourage my speech therapy students to actually practice their speech at home. The reason why is because (and you know this) the more a student practices at home, the faster he will meet those goals and objectives. And the more she practices at home, the stronger her communication abilities will get. So, how can I help them to better understand this?
Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog
|
|
AAC Corner:
Supporting Language Growth in AAC Learners
|
[Source: PrAACtical AAC]
by Carol Zangari
Here's a sobering thought. Relatively few users of AAC use grammatically correct sentences when they communicate. There are lots reasons for that, but in this post, we focus on understanding the things that contribute to that problem. In Part 2, we'll look at ways to address the issue.
Let's reflect on the problem of why many AAC learners don't communicate with complete, grammatically correct utterances.
|
Sensory Corner:
Find the Right Costume for a Child with Tactile Sensitivities
|
[Source: North Shore Pediatric Therapy]
Halloween can be a parent's worst nightmare when attempting to find the right costume for a child with tactile overresponsivity (which occurs when the nervous system experiences touch sensations at a higher, more intense rate than others)
[1]. Children with tactile hypersensitivities often reject the feeling of unfamiliar touch that comes with many Halloween costumes, such as itchy netting, smooth silk, scratchy wool, bumpy corduroy, or denim with tight elastic bands.
Read below for suggestions on how to improve the process of searching for Halloween costumes for these children.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
| 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.
|
|
|
