Kid-tastic!

October 18, 2013
by Clarissa

Fieldwork What are OS/OT?

Last week, I got to spend every day with kids, yay! At USC there’s one full week out of the first three semesters that the students spend at fieldwork and I’m at a school-based pediatric site this semester. I went with my clinical instructor (CI) to several schools for most of each day and then to a clinic for about two treatment sessions before wrapping up. It was really great meeting all the kids that my CI works with, observing her treatments, participating in partial treatments, and also trying out my fine motor toolkit! I practiced documentation too, which wasn’t too stimulating, but I’m still grateful since it’s a necessary part of clinical work.

Anyway, back to the fun stuff! As you read, last week I created a fine motor toolkit and I used it to implement treatments on a few of the kids with fieldwork. My favorite activity was one I call Tennis Ball Monster where I used a tennis ball with a slit cut into it for the mouth and with a face drawn on. I then instructed the child to squeeze the tennis ball so the mouth opens and it can eat pom poms! This is to trick the kid into doing several things on my hidden agenda like hand strengthening, practicing a particular grasp that would eventually help the kid with writing, developing the arches of the hand, and work on thumb opposition which is integral to several types of grasps. Like my pediatrics professor says, “The trick is to outsmart the kid.” Muahaha.

Seriously, though, the creativity is one element of occupational therapy that I love. We’re all motivated in different ways and I love the challenge of tapping into what intrinsically motivates each client.

I don’t know about you, but my fine motor toolkit would be motivating to me, even now! Look at all the animals and colors!

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