Learning Experience

Please share/ discuss something you learned from this fieldwork experience you feel will impact your practice as occupational therapist in the future.

Something I learned from my CI was how to to strengthen and improve trunk stability on a large therapy ball with children who have poor righting reactions and functional dynamic balance. It was very important to me because now, I use it all the time with the kids that I have been working with and have seen improvements in other skills such as fine motor skills since I started using this intervention. Trunk stability is a huge issue for children on the spectrum, and as a student that plans to work with pediatrics, I will use this skill a lot. I learned the difference between using a ball with less air in it, versus a ball that is very full and firm. I also learned that by getting a child to press their heals into the ground or putting pressure on their anterior tibialis muscle, it will cause the child to stand up/engage their abdominal muscles.