Welcoming Amber Valentine – Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Specialist

Amber Valentine[/caption]

Amber Valentine is a Speech-Language Pathologist who graduated from the University of Kentucky with her MS in Communication Disorders.  She is a Board Certified Specialist in Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.  She worked for Baptist Health Systems, Inc for 8 years before moving to Florida where she worked for Wolfsons Children’s Hospital and Mayo Florida.  She is now back in Kentucky working for Baptist Health Lexington.  She has experience in adults and pediatrics with feeding and swallowing difficulties including:  bedside swallow evaluations, Modified Barium Swallow studies, FEES, and pediatric feeding evaluations including NICU.  She has provided guest lectures for the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville on feeding and swallowing topics. She has presented at the hospital level, local, state, national, and international levels on pediatric feeding/swallowing and breastfeeding

We are excited to offer her course:

Treating Complex Feeding Problems: Infants, Toddlers, Preschooler
This course will focus on clinical decision making and treatment strategies to manage complex feeding and swallowing disorders in infants, toddlers and preschoolers across multiple settings including the NICU, Early Intervention/home, and outpatient settings. Participants will enhance their skills in assessment and integration of medical history when developing and implementing a plan of care. Focus will include specific treatment interventions as well as how to develop realistic programs for parents and for generalization across settings. Clinical reasoning skills will take into consideration current research, knowledge of outcomes and priority setting. Detailed discussions of medically fragile infants including treatment strategies for specific etiologies such as lip/tongue tie, Down Syndrome, IDM, cleft lip/palate, neurologic diagnoses will also be involved. Infant feeding information will include evaluation and treatment for both breast and bottle fed infants.  Discussions of more complex case histories will be provided during course to allow participants brainstorming and practice. 

October 14-15, 2017 – Brideville, PA
December 9-10, 2017 – Las Vegas, NV

PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION, TO DOWNLOAD A BROCHURE OR TO REGISTER

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Education Resources, Inc. eligible to offer Category A CEUs for Athletic Trainers  

 

 

Education Resources is proud to announce that we are offering Category A CEUs for Athletic Trainers for both live and online programs. This continued participation in the BOC Approved Provider Program means that athletic trainers can participate in our courses and receive CEUs.

We offer live courses on concussion management, vestibular and balance issues, taping, TBI, and other outpatient and rehab diagnoses.
Please click here for a listing of our relevant courses

We will be launching an online concussion course shortly!

If you are an athletic trainer we want to hear from you!

Please call or e-mail us to request a particular topic and/or location for a course.

We can list any of our courses in the BOC directory and thus provide AT attendees with CEUs.

 

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How do you deal with Professional Burnout?

GUEST BLOGGER: Emily A. Zeman, OTD, MS, OTR/L

Now more than ever is the time for us to invest in strategies to combat professional burnout and stress and take care of ourselves.  Healthy living and self-care are popular with not only millennials but also older generations of working health professionals.        

The question is: What are you doing for self-care and what else can you do to remain client-centered and compassionate at the same time?  It’s time to invest in yourself so you can keep doing what you are good at- taking care of others!

Tips

Personal: Self-awareness & Presence

  • Spend time with family & friends
  • Jump on the mindfulness train: Take up yoga, meditation, or prayer (Go with a buddy!) Check out tips on getting started here: Getting started with mindfulness
  • Add more recreation & time-off to your calendar
  • Exercise, especially out in nature! Here’s why!
  • Participate in support groups & engage in health self-talk
  • Laugh

Work: Professional Resilience & Enrichment

  • Maintain professional identity- attend conferences!
  • Ask questions – be curious!
  • Use humor
  • Seek case consultation & dialogue with peers
  • Eat lunch with colleagues or walk outside for breaks during the day (That nature thing again…)
  • Diversify work load & responsibilities
  • Set good boundaries with everyone It’s important!

 Moving Forward

 Questions to ask yourself:

  • How do I restore my energy when away from work?
  • What do I already do in terms of self-care?

There are many ways to incorporate a few strategies to avoid burnout and practice self-care- even one will get you started on the right track!  Try one a week and see which one fits you best.  You and your patients will both benefit.

References:

  1. Lawson, G. & Myers, J.E. (2011). Wellness, professional quality of life, and career-sustaining behaviors: What keeps us well?  Journal of Counseling & Development, 89(2), 163-171.
  2. Wicks, R.J. (2008).The Resilient Clinician. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

 

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Speaker Spotlight – Jessica Minahan

 

Jessica Minahan[/caption]

We are thrilled to announce that Jessica Minahan M.Ed, BCBA will be one of our keynote speakers at our Annual Therapies in the School Conference coming up in November.

Jessica is a licensed and board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA), author, special educator, and consultant to schools internationally.  Since 2000 she has worked with students who struggle with mental health issues and challenging behavior in public school systems.  She specializes in training staff and creating behavior intervention plans for students who demonstrate explosive and unsafe behavior. She also works with students who have emotional and behavioral disabilities, anxiety disorders, or high-functioning Autism. Her particular interest is to serve these students by combining behavioral interventions with a comprehensive knowledge of best practices for those with complex mental health profiles and learning needs.

She is a blogger on The Huffington Post, the author of The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students, with Nancy Rappaport (Harvard Education Press, 2012), and author of The Behavior Code Companion: Strategies, Tools, and Interventions for Supporting Students with Anxiety-Related or Oppositional Behaviors (Harvard Education Press, 2014).

She holds a BS in Intensive Special Education from Boston University and a dual master’s degree in Special Education and Elementary Education from Wheelock College. She has a certificate of graduate study (CGS) in teaching children with Autism from the University of Albany and received her BCBA training from Northeastern University in Boston. She is sought-after internationally to speak on subjects ranging from effective interventions for students with anxiety to supporting hard-to-reach students in full-inclusion public school settings.

Jessica’s sessions are titled:

Reducing Anxiety in the classroom
With up to one in four children struggling with anxiety in this country, overwhelmed adults are in need of a new approach as well as an effective and easy-to-implement toolkit of strategies that work.
Through the use of case studies, humorous stories, and examples of common challenging situations, participants will learn easy to implement preventive tools, strategies, and interventions for reducing anxiety, increasing self-regulation, work engagement, and self-monitoring.

AND

Strategies to Reduce Anxiety and Related Problem Behaviors in the Classroom
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that one in four thirteen to eighteen year olds have had an anxiety disorder in their lifetime. Without intervention, these children are at risk for poor performance, diminished learning, and social/behavior problems in school.
As a result of this workshop participants will be able to easily implement preventive tools, strategies, and interventions for increasing work engagement, initiation, persistence, and self-monitoring, as well as ways to reduce oppositional moments in students.

Find out more details here.  A full schedule will be posted shortly

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Tips to encourage language and problem solving during play

Great blog submission from a member of our community: Brooke Andrews M.A. CCC-SLP.

Please share your thoughts below.

Speech therapy with young children can sometimes looks like “just playing.” That’s because play and language go together. In addition to play being the primary vehicle for learning in early childhood, let’s talk more about how play and language go hand in hand. A word is a symbol for the object it represents. Children’s play skills are intimately related to their understanding of symbols. If a child uses a towel as a “blanket” and playfully pretends to go to sleep, they are using that towel as a symbol for the blanket. Other examples include pretending a “block” is a phone or a “stick” is a car. This understanding of the use of symbols develops alongside the understanding that words are symbols for objects and ideas. Between 18-24 months, children produce simple sentences. As children learn more about the world, they discover more about the relationships between items, places, and people. Using word combinations give toddlers a way to express these relationships (ex: “sock on,” “more crackers,” etc.) As children combine more words, more complex relationships are reflected through their play. For example, a child may feed their baby doll, burp her, put her pajamas on, then put her to bed. During pretend play, children will often “take on the roll” of a character. Researchers have found that during play, toddlers duplicate the way adults talk to babies and the way babies talk to adults. When toddlers play the role of the “mommy,” they increase their pitch and talk in shorter sentences. They also talk more and ask more questions. Similarly, when toddlers pretend to be the “baby,” they talk less and use high pitched voices. This ability to use language to stand for make-believe relationships is another sign of your toddler’s increasing language and play skills. Play and language are interconnected. Children’s pretend play is often the origin of their earliest “narratives” (Golinkoff & Pasek, 1999). Engaging in pretend play with your child gives them the model and structure for telling a story. These stories help them develop early literacy skills. Remember to follow your child’s lead and become a “partner” instead of a “director” during play. Here are some tips to follow when engaging in pretend play with your little one • Balance your turns- Don’t make all the suggestions or do all the talking. Balance turns with your child. • Create “problems” during play – Pretend the tea for your tea party is “too hot” and encourage your child to come up with a solution (blow on it, pretend to throw ice cubes in the cup “clink!”). Good stories have conflicts that need a resolution. Practice early versions of this during pretend play. • Wait – Before offering a suggestion for what to do. Give your child a chance to come up with an idea on their own. • Expand your child’s play – You can “partner” with your child by expanding on the play scene they are interested in. • Have fun- Use funny voices and fun noises. Kids are already doing this. Join in the play and don’t be afraid to get silly! Next time you are having a tea party with your little one, keep in mind all that they are learning about language, literacy, and problem-solving. All while having fun and getting to spend time with you! References:
Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (1999). How babies talk: The Magic and Mystery of Language in the First Three Years of Life. New York: Plume. “Play with Language and Speech.” In Child Discourse, edited by S. Ervin-Tripp and C. Mitchell Kernan , 24-47. New York: Academic Press, 1997.
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