Here are some great hand-eye coordination activities for clients across the lifespan – some are especially good for teens! Try these with tweenies and teens with difficulties with sensory-motor coordination, to get them off devices and outdoors over the summer.
Submitted by guest blogger Ruth OT Before I trained to be an occupational therapist, I studied neuroscience to masters by research level. It is so helpful in my work to have that underpinning knowledge of some of the things going on in the brain and how these affect behaviour. However, I don’t miss growing neurons in petri dishes and counting them. Our kids are not…
Submitted by Guest authour Jane OT As I read the recent article “14 Phrases Kids Said That Were Code Words for ‘I’m Anxious“ from The Mighty, It felt familiar – like I had met every one of these responses to anxiety and not just from children. “What’s wrong with me?”… “I’m tired.” … “Can’t we stay home?” “I don’t feel well.” Anxiety affects so many people…
Recent research from Tel Aviv University suggests that smoking cannabis can trigger schizophrenia. The study provides evidence that in susceptible young people, smoking or using cannabis trigger schizophrenia. Susceptible young people include those for whom there is a familial history of mental illness. Reference: Hadar Segal-Gavish, Neta Gazit, Yael Barhum, Tali Ben-Zur, Michal Taler, Shay Henry Hornfeld, Irit Gil-Ad, Abraham Weizman, Inna Slutsky, Minae Niwa, Atsushi Kamiya,…
The teenage brain and the behaviours it can drive in young people can be perplexing and often scary to the parents standing by, watching and supporting. Knowing” what is sensory and what is “just teenage brain” can be tricky to parents of young people with neurological diversity. Neuroscience is helping us understand why teens can suddenly engage in extreme, rollercoastering unpredictable behaviours that challenge those caring for…
The ASI Wise lecture team have been at Abbot’s Lea School in Liverpool this weekend with a fantastic group of committed and enthusiastic occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and teachers exploring the use of sensory strategies and Ayres’ Sensory Integration therapy to support children, young people and adults mental and wellbeing health. Experiential learning opportunities, embedded into the course, help participants to understand their own sensory…
The first Sensory Ladders were made in 2001 for adults with sensory integration difficulties receiving help with mental health difficulties in Cornwall. Influenced by the paediatric Alert Program, they offered therapists a way to combine Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Ayres’ Sensory Integration, addressing the development of the person’s self-awareness in collaboration with ward staff on an acute psychiatric inpatient unit. The need to start with the…
Last week I found a copy of a therapy review that a young person wrote a few years ago. “My sensory me is about me – and only me. It’s not about anybody else. It helps me be me. I don’t worry about what other people think I should be. I am starting to like me now. I’m not so sad anymore. Knowing why I’m different…
This feature article was written by Claire Smith, one of the first UK OT’s to deliver Sensory Integration alongside Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). I am delighted to introduce Claire to you, as she was one of the first people I ever lectured about how to apply Sensory Integration’s in Mental Health. That was way back in 2004 and tonight she features on a BBC Documentary…
This article from the New York Times talks about the importance of break time and free play to school children. Children often lose break time because they haven’t completed work or as a consequence for an undesired behaviour. “…Recess also plays an important role in the ability to maintain self-control during class time. Self-control is not an unlimited resource, and by the time unstructured play rolls around, most children…
