Ip Reflection

My OT supervisor travels between schools, patients’ homes and the clinic. During the week she travels between five schools, which normally takes a minimum of an hour and a half. Each day, the COTA that I am observing, sees a minimum of six children. On a typical day, she travels school to school in the morning and finishes up her day at the clinic. Most of the children she holds therapy sessions for at the clinic come after their school day is over.
An IEP is an individualized education program, it is defined as “a plan with specific goals developed jointly by the special educator, medical and therapy personnel and the family” (Early,p 509). Achieve Therapy Services is a private organization, they are not contracted by the Brevard County School District, therefore are not required to follow the goals of the IEP made for the child are school. However, these goal of the IEP are taken into consideration when the goals are set by the OTR treating each child. The children that I observed the COTA working with struggle with sensory functions which include visual, hearing, vestibular, touch and proprioceptive functions(OTPF, s23), forming letters correctly (top-down approach), visual motor including tracking/ scanning and fine motor deficits.
It seemed that the children that were seen in a school setting tended to stay focused better
With that being said their “therapeutic use of self” would adapt to each patient that was seen. One patient had to be reassured that he was always doing a good job, the COTA would make him giggle and had showed empathy towards his feelings. Another patient responded well to jokes and silly body language to stay engaged in the activity. Like Occupational Therapy treating a patient holistically, it is equally important for each therapist to adapt to the personality of their patients to make them feel comfortable to be able to transition well through the therapy