I am most interested in what occupational goals your handwriting students have. What is a handwriting student? How are they different from other students? Are they different from each other? How are they assessed? What do you use for outcomes? After the 'warm up' is intervention individualised? In a rural practice we are not specialised and have lots of 'one off' situations. I am reminded of a twelve year old boy who was referred to me because of hand writing. At least that was the 'problem' from his teacher's point of view. Through data gathering from his parents it was clear that his lack of shoulder girdle development as an infant had not supported finding his hands during the period when he would have been differentiating his fingers. Although his shoulders had caught up he used his hands like mitts with four fingers together and thumb opposition. He had accommodated and adapted to manage most of what he needed to do to survive both at home and in the school system. His desk was messy because he shoved things into it and many things fell on the floor. Part of a card playing family, he regularly squeezed cards 'too hard'. In every area of his life there were required occupational activities that were compromised but he managed somehow to get through. I live in cowboy country. What was important to this young boy was rodeo. He was an excellent horse man and lariat thrower. He was a member of a competitive roping team and the excitement poured out of him as he told me about that part of his life. Ropers usually have one position that is their specialty but they work hard to make sure they can move into any other position if the need arises. When I asked about this he wilted and with tears in his eyes told me he couldn't tie knots. We never did any hand writing exercises. It took about three months of struggling to lift one finger at a time, putty, pinch grasp activities including model building and lots of other things until he was able to write more than one beautiful line of script before his hand cramped and his writing became illegible but that was an artefact and barely noticed by him. His whole focus was to have hands that could tie knots. We worked together to develop short term goals to help him chart progress. The important day for him was when although slowly with his team-mates cheering him on and struggling to give him the time he needed he tied down a calf.
The expertise of the profession of Occupational Therapy is; - to become consciously aware of mismatches between basic abilities and task demands (cognitive, psychological, social and physical), which interfere with the performance of needed, wanted, expected or potential occupations; - to analyze the mismatches; and - to design and offer interventions to resolve the mismatches. Joan Riches B.Sc.O.T., OT(C) Specialist in Cognitive Disability Riches Consulting High River, Alberta, Canada 403 652 7928 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of susanne Sent: October 23, 2008 7:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [OTlist] ideas for fine motor warm ups for HW students?? On Friday, October 24, 2008 1:03 AM, Ron wrote: > What the heck are HW Students? Ah Ron - this cracked me up - that YOU asked this question and not I - guess misery loves company:-) BTW - after some thinking I came up with this guess: "Hand Writing Students". Is that it, Angela? warmly susanne, denmark -- Options? www.otnow.com/mailman/options/otlist_otnow.com Archive? www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.2/1741 - Release Date: 10/23/2008 7:54 AM -- Options? www.otnow.com/mailman/options/otlist_otnow.com Archive? www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
