Therapy Activities: Novelty vs. Routine
In a therapy session this morning, I was reminded of the balance between novelty and routine that exists when working with babies who are HH/D (hard of hearing and deaf). Young children with cochlear implants and with hearing loss in general, often have a gap between their cognitive and linguistic abilities and this influences our choice of therapy materials and the way we conduct intervention. I spent the hour-long session pulling out familiar toys at 26-month old Paul's repeated requests: "Want ducks!" - then watching him lose interest after a short period of time. During those moments, I had an arsenal of never-before-presented toys that I would present, using communication temptation to elicit more verbal attempts from Paul. The session had this back-and-forth rhythm, reminding me that part of the art within the science of early intervention is knowing how to balance a baby's competing interests in routine, (infants enjoy playing with the same objects repeatedly) and novelty (extending the child's attention by introducing new toys on a regular basis.) Keep working on your comfort level with the balancing act, fellow clinicians.
A friend of mine from the clinic I work at just went to the Amercian Occupational Therapy show in Houston recently and he came back with a treasure trove of great ideas from some of the seminars there for doing exactly this. Also, this one company, I think its Abilitations, had some great items i can use to hold my kids interest.
Me and my friend have more or less been on the same wavelength when working with kids for several years now. I took an online seminar a while back from an OT doc in Seattle (who I can't remember the name of now, of course:) who had designed these great ways that SLPs and OTs can benefit from each other, especially in areas of feeding disorders. Since then, after we come back from conferences and seminars and so forth, we always bring back something useful for the other one and its really opened my eyes to the possibilites of interdisciplinary cooperation!
All my best,
Bev
blog regarding novelty and routine. I couldn't agree more
about the value of inter-disciplinary work... you both mentioned the
value of the OTs and PTs who have interfaced with your work. I'll never
forget a 2-year old patient of mine in Early Intervention who had a cochlear
implant and was post-meningitic. I learned so much from watching her PT
and he helped me incorporate techniques into my work that strengthened her
weak, left side. Her OT was also an invaluable help. Likewise, I feel
they benefited from suggestions I gave them about how to incorporate our
language and listening goals appropriately as they worked with her. It
took a whole village, oh should I say a team, to serve that child, and to do it
well. Many thanks for your thoughtful remarks!