Done Observing at My First Place

          I really wish I could stay at the place that I observed for two days because I feel like I was just getting to know the workers and children there. I seemed to be more opened up and so did everyone else. I learned a lot by just what the teacher was telling me about certain things. The teachers were also talking back and forth about OT colleges so I can a lot of insight on that and none of it scared me. It will be fun to get to observe another place and compare the two for now and then 3 and then 4.
         It was hard for the children to be back and do the things they were use to doing there at the school because they just got back from Spring Break. I saw a lot more crying and not listening then the first time I was there but that is normal for children after a long break away. It just shows you how important a routine is to some of these developmentally challenged children. I learned 3 new things that were really interesting to me today. OT is more complex then a person would think but yet it is just doing the simplest things or teaching the children to do the simplest things that gets me. It also does show a lack of the way people live now. No one is home to watch the children, no one feels like watching them so they just sit in front of the TV, and so forth. It is sad when you know some of the things the children are having problems with could easily have been fixed by being "pushed" to go run and play outside for a few hours a day. How can you miss that! Sorry that is how I was raised so I'm kind of bias on that part.
           Anyways, back to the things I learned today. One of them was children do not know how to balance themselves. Some children will not get dizzy and needs to be taught that and some might get too dizzy that they need to learn how to calm themselves down. It has to do with their vestibular, visual, and auditory parts of their body and not knowing how to use them. There is a protocol that I learned today for this exact thing and it is called the "Astronaut Protocol". It is where you have a child sit and/or lay down on a flat piece of broad coved with material and just spin them one way first and then the other way next. When they get done with that, they should have their eyes spinning/moving a little bit like "normal" children do when they are dizzy. Dizzyiness is a good sign and I never thought of it that way and your eyes really do move after you stop spinning around and that is a sign that your body is healthy. This protocol was used on another Autistic child where he had no feeling of dizziness.
             Then I learned about another protocol that is called the "Wilbarger Brushing Protocol" and that is a protocol used for sensory seeking children. There is a certain little oval shaped brush that you use just to brush the child on the arms, legs, back, anywhere they want you to and they calm down because it feels good on them. Then I learned something right after that and it is just some joint compressions so that children that aren't aware of their joints can get aware of them. It is just where you push the joints together so like the hand to the wrist joint or the ankle to the leg joint or the knee to the upper leg joint and wherever there is a joint you just push inwards on both of them so they come together. Both of these things were used on a child with Autism.
             Then I got to see a child with OCD so that was neat to see and learn about. The OT would actually use a list for the child to look at. She would write out a list of things to do and when they were done she would cross it off and he could see what the next thing to do was. She did forget to put going back to class on the writing broad and the child kind of started a fight with her because it wasn't on the broad. He would walk up the stairs every time that before he made a basket. He would line the balls up before he started to shoot them in the basket. The Astronaut Protocol was used to calm this child down because he had so much energy. He would just try and lay there or stay in the position he was instead of moving right away.
              It was also used by another child to get him to be dizzy for the right amount of time because he didn't get dizzy at all. I looked up these two protocols after I got home and they are real things that OTs use all the time. I tried to look for some more protocols but I haven't found anymore yet.
               Another thing that I loved about today was that the OT used a big rubber ball for 2 children to work on their core strength. It is amazing how something that simple can help a child and yet we don't think about it at home but who would know, right? She would sing to or with them while they would be bouncing on the big ball and if they fell back on the ball, then they would have to try and get themselves upright again. It was like doing sit ups backwards on a big ball.
              It was neat to see how OT is done in just a preschool setting that as a developmental center attached to it. Now I get to observe how it is done in a small public school starting tomorrow for the rest of this week so there will be more entries coming I'm sure because now we are getting into more of what I love to deal with. I could do with all day, every day even if it does involved cutting things open and searching for certain things in college classes. It just makes it that much more interesting.