On-Demand
On-Demand Using Gravity To Facilitate Sensory Motor Development in Infants and Children
Available from May 1st - June 30th, 2022
CEUs: 5.25 Contact Hours
Recording available for 30 days following your purchase
Cost: $180
Course Description
Gravity influences infant development in many ways, from triggering vestibular processing to developing and strengthening muscles. Due to a number of factors, including improper positioning, lack of typical sensory motor opportunities, other environmental factors, and/or diagnoses of failure to thrive, autism, sensory processing disorders, etc., many of today's children are delayed in their sensory motor development when compared with past generations. These delays are particularly apparent in lack of core strength, proximal stability, and upper extremity coordination. Based on years of clinical experience, literature review and personal published research, the instructor will offer some unique perspectives on reflex integration and functional movement patterns, emphasizing the importance of gravity and vestibular function to normal development.
On-Demand The Pervasive Impact of Breath on Function: What to Know and What to Do
Eileen Richter & Patricia Oetter
CEUs: 3 contact hours (.3 AOTA CEUs)
Recording available for 30 days after purchase
Cost: $89
Course Description
Breath has not always been a focus in pediatric treatment. New information is shedding light on how respiration impacts many aspects of development. It is therefore necessary for us to take a more in-depth and active approach to breathing function in our clients with regulatory, sensory processing and/or sensory motor dysfunction.
Current study of breathing restrictions be they structural, functional, or the result of trauma or allergies is identifying associations with regulatory disorders such as sleep apnea, sleep patterns, ADD, and ADHD; as well as motor skills such as feeding, posture and other skills. Observation of respiratory patterns leads to a better understanding of development and sensory motor outcomes. Identifying where 3-dimensional rib cage expansion, i.e. breath, is restricted (diaphragm, upper chest, neck, mouth, nose) provides clues to function and is a foundational focus for treatment. Rate, depth, rhythm and gradation are required for attention, self-regulation, endurance, postural control, eating, voicing for speech, and many other development achievements.
This workshop will emphasize the process of respiratory development, from in utero on, as it relates to typical and atypical sensory processing, and sensory motor processing and development. We will discuss how this applies to assessment and treatment of pediatric clients with varied diagnoses. Using lectures, slides, & videos, we will explore assessment and treatment options to address various dysfunctional respiratory patterns.
On-Demand MORE: Integrating the Mouth with Sensory and Postural Functions
Patricia Oetter, MA, OTR, FAOTA and Eileen Richter, MPH, OTR/L, FAOTA
Next offering July 1st - August 30th!
CEUs: 11 Contact Hours (1.1 AOTA CEUs)
Recording available for 30 days after purchase
Cost: $375
Course Description
While oral-motor treatment approaches for neurologically impaired children have focused on severe feeding dysfunction, recent clinical work with children who have sensory processing/developmental dysfunction has revealed a strong association between subtle oral-motor and respiratory dysfunction and many sensory integrative and sensory motor problems.
A framework for understanding how and why many aspects of development are significantly influenced by oral functions will be presented. This discussion will include the relationship of the suck/swallow/breathe synchrony to behavior, learning, postural development, feeding, communication, arousal, self-regulation, psychosocial development, and even common health issues in children. The relevance of this information to treatment principles with children who have sensory processing/developmental dysfunction will then be shared using slides, case examples and participant lab activities. Documentation strategies for identifying abnormal function and demonstrating change through treatment will be provided. This information is particularly useful for occupational and physical therapists and speech pathologists working with children but may be applied across the age span.
On-Demand Holistic Clinical Reasoning
Kim Barthel & Shelley Mannell
Originally Recorded on October 7th, October 21st, November 4th and November 18th, 2021
CEUs: 8 Contact Hours (.8 AOTA CEUs)
Recording available for 30 days after purchase
Cost: $275
Course Description
There are so many layers that can contribute to the difficulties our children experience. Sensory processing, postural control, attachment, motor control, emotional regulation and cognition; all of these factors can play a part. When looking at the big picture, what are the clues that lead us to effective assessment and treatment?
Join Kim Barthel, OTR and Shelley Mannell, PT for a unique series of live online learning. Participants will be invited to submit a video of a client for analysis and with the ones that are selected, participants will have the opportunity to clinically reason together with the instructors. Video analysis will allow the group to collectively view (and review) the diverse needs of the children observed. What do we notice that is working for the child functionally? What points towards an area of challenge? How might clinicians know which lens to use when watching a child interact with their environment?
Shelley and Kim have worked and taught together for over 25 years. Their interaction around supporting children is a partnership, a working conversation that serves as a model for considering multiple factors in assessment and treatment. The highlight is their collaboration, deepening the understanding around how all these factors can come together in forming a cohesive plan for any
individual child.
Irene Ingram, OTR/L
Originally Recorded on April 16th, 2021
CEUs: 3 Contact Hours
Recording available for 30 days following your purchase
Cost: $89
Course Description
This course will provide a valuable set of tools for every therapist’s toolbox to jumpstart systems and engage the child’s natural ability to organize through the vestibular system.
Natural Postural Engagement (NPE) assists the child in accessing his original system of organization. It uses many techniques to organize the child for body awareness, sensory processing, symmetry, midline, range of motion, rhythm, core righting, use of limbs and oral motor efficiency. It specifically treats above and below the hyoid in relationship to the integration of the sublingual floor, infra hyoid muscles, with the function of the lips, jaw, and tongue.
The NPE program rapidly changes the neurological function of the child when techniques are effectively carried out. It is excellent for home programing due to the simplicity and playful attributes.
Kim Barthel
Originally Recorded on November 10th, 2020
CEUs: 3 Contact Hours (.3 AOTA CEUs)
Recording available for 30 days following your purchase
Cost: $89
Course Description
With the rising demand due to COVID-19, an increase in the accessibility and quality of telehealth services has transformed our ways of connecting, learning and supporting clients. Many parents of children with special needs share that their online therapy sessions reach into their homes and translate therapeutic concepts directly into their daily lives. For many of us as therapists, this is what we have always hoped our therapy would achieve: to generalize the skills learned in therapy to support families every day. Telehealth is not intended to replace our valued hands-on, face-to-face assessments and interventions, but it can be and is becoming a valued adjunct. Because therapy in a virtual platform will be part of a hybrid strategy forevermore, now is the time to hone and optimize our online therapy skills.
Kim Barthel
Originally Recorded on August 12, 19, 26, September 3, 2020
CEUs: 6 Contact Hours (.6 AOTA CEUs)
Recording available for 30 days following your purchase
Cost: $215
Course Description
The situation we are experiencing with COVID-19 is considered a collective trauma. Within this collective experience, emotional and behavioral responses are as varied as the number of humans on the planet. It is affecting us all, how we manage our own feelings and how we relate to one another. Adding to the ongoing uncertainty of issues related to the pandemic is a heightened awareness of racial injustice, political division and for many of us, an uncertain future. This unique series of four live webinars will address the dynamics of heightened emotion, allowing teachers and school-based practitioners to explore trauma-sensitive practice in real-time - bringing the theory into action. Appreciating the potential impacts of both early developmental trauma and current unpredictable events upon teaching and learning offers practitioners deeper insight and compassionate curiosity about how to support our students returning to school in the fall.
Brain and Sensory Foundations - First Level
Sonia Story
CEUs: 16 Contact Hours (1.6 AOTA CEUs)
Cost: $495
Course Description
The Online Brain and Sensory Foundations course offers multimedia instruction for assessing and remediating innate developmental, rhythmic, and primitive and postural reflex movements that are retained or underdeveloped. Innate and integrative movements are combined to promote brain and sensory-motor function and the foundation for improved learning, speech, emotional-social skills, and physical balance, strength, stamina and coordination for all ages.
As a result of this class, students are prepared to recognize the presence of dysfunctional and under-developed primitive and postural reflexes. Through specific movement and reflex integration protocols, participants will be able to assist themselves and others in:
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Integrating reflex patterns.
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Releasing stress and anxiety.
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Building neuro-sensory-motor foundational skills that lead to improved physical, emotional and cognitive functioning.
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Attaining meaningful goals with greater ease.
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Using reflex integration protocols and rhythmic movements to decrease muscle tension and pain.