A FAB Alternative to Sensory Diets

 

John Pagano[/caption]

Posted by Education Resources Faculty: John Pagano

FAB “Functionally Alert Behavior” Strategies provide a practical alternative to the use of a Sensory Diet. In working for over 30 years as a full time occupational therapist with my own sensory processing challenges, I created FAB Strategies to quickly develop individualized strategies that improve self-control in children with developmental and behavioral challenges. FAB Strategies are also used by many parents, teachers, as well as occupational, physical, speech, and mental health therapists I have shared them with over the past 10 years in my workshops.

Organized in four sections labeled A-D FAB Strategies sequentially include environmental adaptations, sensory modulation, positive behavioral support, and physical self-regulation strategies. Sections A-D guide the types of strategies selected, with at least one strategy from each section included. The strategies can be implemented in any order, but alternating seated with more active strategies usually works best.

In conjunction with the team an occupational, physical, speech, or mental health professional develops an individualized goal and selects the strategies. The strategies to be used by all team members are checked off and underlined on the FAB Strategies form. Strategies listed in bold are marked with an X and underlined for use by trained occupational, physical, and speech therapists. Two blanks are included on the bottom of the FAB Strategies form to allow for additional strategies contributing to goal attainment.

FAB Strategies are useful for quickly developing occupational therapy clinical and school interventions, home programs, strategies for use by teachers and therapists, and as a checklist of strategies that promote self-control in children with development and behavioral challenges. A signature line is provided at the bottom of the page for parents to sign that they understand and agree with all the adaptive equipment and techniques before they are used. FAB Strategies provide a practical tool for efficiently developing individualized goal-directed strategies for clinical use and sharing with parents, teachers, as  ell as occupational, physical, speech, and mental health therapists.

Effective Ways to Manage Behavior and Increase Functional Outcomes
by John Pagano 

April 26-27, 2013 – Puyallup, WA
September 20-21, 2013 – Orland Park, IL
October 18-19, 2013 – Cedar Knolls, NJ
November 8-9, 2013 – Hollywood, FL 

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Education Resources joins Facebook and Linked In

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We are thrilled to announce that we are now on Facebook and Linked in!!

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We are hoping to be more accessible to you and be present in the platform that is most convenient for you.

We want to provide you with up to the minute relevant information that will benefit your career and practice.

As we build our  new communities of Therapists please let us know what you would like to see us post. We also welcome your feedback, testimonials and suggestions.

Please visit our Linked in and Facebook pages and “Like” and “Follow” us

 

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Posted in: News

 

Free CE course for Adult Rehab and Geriatric Therapists

Our blog has been up and running for almost a year now……… where did that go???

Our blog has been very successful building a strong pediatric therapy community, and Acute Care community. We would like now to do the same for our Adult Rehab and Geriatric therapists, building a community that will serve you well, a place for you to share your ideas, challenges, solutions and to learn therapy tips from others. We would also like to be able offer a post course discussion for our acute care therapists, building on this new community.

We are offering you the opportunity to be entered into a drawing for a free CE course.
All you need to do is submit a blog entry which can be:
1. a clinical issue that you are seeking opinions about. 
2. a case problem relating to the field that you are struggling with. 
3. a therapy tip that you would like to share.
4. a professional practice issue 

The post can be of any length (up to 500 words) and photos and videos are great, as long as you have obtained written permission.

We will enter the first 30 blogs in a drawing for a free ERI course. 
Deadline for entry is May 10th 2013 – winner to be announced before the end of May

Please Post your entry here or visit our blog page and click on “Post Your Blog Here”, or email me; mwashington@educationresourcesinc.com

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and sharing them with our ERI community.

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Welcome to PEDI-CAT – the new computer adaptive pediatric assessment tool

PEDI-CAT featured in the Advance for Physical Therapy and Rehab Medicine:

Making Advances in Pediatric Outcomes 
Using the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory Computer Adaptive Test (PEDI-CAT).

By Helene M. Dumas PT, MS, and Maria A. Fragala-Pinkham, PT, DPT, MS
Posted on: March 5, 2013

“The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI), originally published in 1992, has been revised as a computer adaptive test (CAT)-the PEDI-CAT.  The PEDI-CAT measures abilities in the three functional domains of Daily Activities, Mobility and Social/Cognitive.  The PEDI-CAT can be used across all clinical diagnoses and community settings.  As with the original paper-pencil PEDI, the PEDI-CAT can be administered by professional judgment of clinicians or educators who are familiar with the child or by parent report. This computerized adaptive version of the PEDI is intended to provide an accurate and precise assessment while increasing efficiency and reducing respondent burden……………..” www.pedicat.com

Helene Dumas and Maria Fragala-Pinkham are physical therapists and work in the Research Center at Franciscan Hospital for Children. They are the senior authors of the PEDI-CAT. Education Resources is thrilled to have them as faculty members and they will be presenting PEDI-CAT at our popular annual Therapies in the School November 21-22, 2013 – Framingham, MA. Look out for our brochure coming shortly.

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Sensory Processing Disorder……. in Me!!!

Post from Barbara, Our Company Co-Founder

A recent bout with unexpected sunburn (are they ever expected?) left my back so “prickly” that it ruined an entire day and night of my island vacation. Prickly doesn’t really describe the agony I was in…it was more like someone was sticking pins into my back for hours. My sleep was interrupted almost hourly, despite aloe applications and Ibuprofen.

But the real eye opener was while I was in the throws of this agony, my poor, unsuspecting husband went to hold my hand, and I pulled my hand away. I just could not stand to be touched. I want to assure you that this is not my usual response. Any touch felt noxious at that point, and I wondered, “is this what is feels like to have a sensory processing disorder”? If so, how awful it must be for a child (or an adult for that matter) to live like this chronically!

After much experimentation, the only thing that helped this sensory barrage was being in a cool, dim room, and applying cool, damp washcloths to my back, nearly constantly. I couldn’t even concentrate enough to read the newspaper, no less a novel that required keeping track of each character and a complicated story line. 

While I do not recommend this method of understanding and becoming more compassionate with our clients with SPD, I did want to report the experience to all you therapists who deal with these issues. The take home message for me is that constant neutral sensory input does work, this disorder is  truly distracting, even in a mature CNS (well, I try to be mature most of the time), and OTs are truly saints! 

I would love to hear your thoughts on SPD and what you find works for calming and decreasing the sensation of noxious inputs for these children.

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