June 22, 2018
Issue 25, Volume 11
It's All About the Choices!     
          
Greetings and Happy Friday!

 Please enjoy our weekly newsletter!
 
News Items:
  • Sef's "Unexpected" Graduation Speech Has Gone Viral
  • Low Medicaid Rates Preventing Children From Getting ABA Therapy
  • Blood Test May Serve As Early Predictor For Cerebral Palsy
  • Rapid and Widespread White Matter Plasticity During an Intensive Reading Intervention
  • Special Education Enrollment Trends Upward
PediaStaff News and Hot Jobs 
  • Hot, New Job! Pediatric Occupational OT - SE Missouri
  • Hot, New Job!  Pediatric Assistive Technology OT - Washington, DC
  • Hot, New Job! Pediatric School-Based SLP - Los Angeles, CA
  • Hot, New Job! School Based BCBA - Bedford, KY
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
  • Easy DIY Story Stones for Fun Creative Play
  • SLP 2018/19 SY Attendance and Data Collection Freebie
  • Would You Rather Printable Conversation Card Freebie
  • Watermelon God's Eye Weaving Craftivity
Articles and Special Features 
  • OT Corner: How to Teach Spacing Between Words with a Clothespin
  • Pediatric Therapy Corner: Bringing a Dog to School
  • SLP Corner: Two SLPs Multiply a Child's Gains Through Collaboration
  • Literacy Corner: What's Going On In Your Child's Brain When You Read Them A Story?
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
8

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. 
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Recent Occupational Therapist and COTA Jobs 

Sef's "Unexpected" Graduation Speech Has Gone Viral
Editor's Note:  Wow.  Just Wow.   We just can't articulate how much we love this.

I saw a clip of this speech on USA Today this morning, and then went searching for the rest, which I found on Autism Speaks.    Enjoy and be moved. Remember, it is YOU who help all the Sef's do the unexpected.

Watch This Wonderful Video Through a Link on our Blog
Low Medicaid Rates Preventing Children From Getting ABA Therapy
[Source: Disability Scoop]

Reagan Wright, who is nearly 14, is devoted to all things American Girls, and dreams of becoming a veterinarian. For a child with autism spectrum disorder, Reagan is considered high-functioning.
Which isn't to say, her mother Emily Wright emphasizes, that Reagan is not a handful.

Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
Blood Test May Serve As Early Predictor For Cerebral Palsy
[Source: Disability Scoop]

New research suggests that a blood test could one day help doctors flag children with cerebral palsy far earlier, allowing young kids with the condition to get a head start on intervention.
In a new study, researchers identified differences in a panel of microRNAs - molecules instrumental in the developmental process - in premature babies who later developed abnormal muscle tone, a symptom associated with cerebral palsy.

Rapid and Widespread White Matter Plasticity During an Intensive Reading Intervention 
[Source: Nature Communications via Reading Rockets]

Using MRI measurements of the brain's neural connections, or "white matter," researchers have shown that, in struggling readers, the neural circuitry strengthened - and their reading performance improved - after just eight weeks of a specialized tutoring program. The study is the first to measure white matter during an intensive educational intervention and link children's learning with their brains' flexibility. After eight weeks of intensive 

Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog
Special Education Enrollment Trends Upward
[Source: Disability Scoop]

The number of students receiving special education in the nation's public schools is on the rise, according to a new federal report.  

There were 6.7 million kids with disabilities in classrooms across the country during the 2015-2016 school year, accounting for 13.2 percent of all students. That's up from 6.6 million the year prior.

Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog
PediaStaff is actively recruiting for Pediatric Occupational Therapists to join a dedicated team at a Not-for-Profit Children's Center in SE Missouri.  Have you ever thought about working for a company that isn't concerned about whether a family can afford to pay for their child's therapy services?   If so...you have got to look at this job opportunity!   We are looking to add several Occupational Therapists to our TEAM...New Graduates are highly recommended to apply for this job.   You would be joining a team of Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapists and assistants who are truly passionate about the work and moreover the result of their efforts.  They see the result daily!

Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog
Do you love working with Assistive Technology? This children's specialty hospital is seeking an Occupational Therapist to be responsible for assisting pediatric patients to provide Durable Medical Equipment, orthotics, splinting and casting.

* Children's specialty hospital provides services to children from infancy through age 21 in inpatient and outpatient settings

* This family-centered medical facility provides a variety of therapy services to meet the child's needs
* OT will complete necessary documentation, evaluating and casting patients for orthotics, evaluating for and fabricating custom splints and equipment modifications and assisting with/performing serial casting

Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog
"This is HOLLYWOOD! What's your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams."  We are currently hiring School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists in Los Angeles, California for this coming SY18-19. It's a great place to thrive, grow and dream!

Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog
'We are searching for a Board Certified Behavior Analyst for a direct hire, pediatric position located near Bedford, KY. The therapist will have the opportunity to work with school-aged children mostly in preschool and elementary grades. This is a growing area within the practice, and the goal is to add Behavioral Analysts to the team. The BCBA will have the opportunity to grow with this practice into other settings, if desired.

Learn About / Apply for This Job on our Blog
Easy DIY Story Stones for Fun Creative Play
[Source: Hands On As We Grow]

We love story stones in our house! They are one of my favorite open-ended toys.
Story stones use your child's imagination and creativity while sneaking in language development and thinking skills.

Story stones are primarily used as prompts to create stories, but you can get creative with them and use them for different things.

Learn More About this Activity Through our Blog
SLP 2018/19 SY Attendance and Data Collection Freebie
[Source:  Activity Tailor]

I always have these grand ideas of filing away and reorganizing all of my materials before I check out for the summer (clients). Ha!

By the time progress notes are finished, I am more than happy to shut the door and say "I'll get to it later." With the idea that some bored, rainy summer day, I'll forgo a matinee and popcorn and head it to clean. It never happens.

Download this Freebie Through a Link on our Blog
Would You Rather Printable Conversation Card Freebie
[Source: Childhood 101]

Have you ever played Would You Rather? It's a fun, conversation game that is fabulous for getting kids talking. And it provides parents (or teachers) with some really interesting insights into what your kids think, believe, prefer and even, dream about.

'Would you rather be a wizard or a ninja?' 'Would you rather have no teeth or no hair?' 'Would you rather give up screen time or sweets?' The game is all about choosing a side and justifying your preference.

Download this Freebie Through a Link on our Blog
Watermelon God's Eye Weaving Craftivity
[Source: Red Ted Art]

Oh yes! Two of my favorite SUMMER themes collide - a wonderful DIY watermelon craft meets the summer classic Yarn Weaving Project: How to Make a God's Eye.  Now, we have made God's Eyes before! We love a nature God's eye version using beach finds in summer and conkers in Autumn. As well as well as the flower patter God's eye which looks effective and yet is surprisingly easy to make (my 6 and 8 yrs old took to it like a duck to water!). Today, we are back to the classic weaving pattern, 

OT Corner: How to Teach Spacing Between Words with a Clothespin
[Source: The OT Toolbox]

When it comes to legibility in handwriting, spacing between words makes all the! Addressing spacial awareness in handwriting can make a big difference in legibility fairly quickly given intervention, practice, awareness, and the tools to address spacing in written work. We've shared several handwriting spacing tools here on The OT Toolbox, like a cute DIY space martian spacing tool and this pipe cleaner spacing tool.

Sometimes, a simple visual cue like this craft stick spacing tool and pointer stick can  make a big difference in handwriting spatial awareness and handwriting legibility.


Pediatric Therapy Corner: Bringing a Dog to School
[Source:  Edutopia]

When you walk down a hall in my school, you may encounter our therapy dog, Boomer. There were originally reservations in our district about having a therapy dog, but now Boomer is one of the most sought after staff members for his ability to enhance many components of social and emotional learning (SEL).

I'm in my 25th year in education, and I believe in the necessity of teaching social and emotional skills-they really do help students thrive academically.


SLP Corner: Two SLPs Multiply a Child's Gains Through Collaboration
[Source: Leader Live]

Meredith Gennaro and Stephanie Sigal are speech-language pathologists who met in September 2017 when they began working with the same child.

This school year, I worked with another speech-language pathologist to help 4-year-old Michael improve his articulation and language skills. His parents wanted to supplement his school-based intervention-provided by SLP Meredith Gennaro-so we began working 

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

Literacy Corner:   What's Going On In a Child's Brain When You Read Them A Story?
[Source:  Mindshift]

"I want The Three Bears!"

These days parents, caregivers and teachers have lots of options when it comes to fulfilling that request. You can read a picture book, put on a cartoon, play an audiobook, or even ask Alexa.
A newly published study gives some insight into what may be happening inside young children's brains in each of those situations. And, says lead author Dr. John Hutton, there is an apparent "Goldilocks effect" - some kinds of storytelling may be "too cold" for children, while others are "too hot." And, of course, some are "just right.".

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