We are thrilled to welcome Nisha Hochman, MS, OTR/L as a valuable consultant to the ERI team.
Nisha received both her bachelor of science and post-professional master’s degree in occupational therapy from Boston University. She has been practicing occupational therapy in a variety of school settings since 2000, most recently and for the last 8 years, she has been working for the Dover Public Schools in Massachusetts . Her responsibilities entail direct service, consultation and staff training.
She is certified in Sensory Integration and Interactive Metronome.
Nisha will be working with our team advising on current topics, trends , and the therapy needs within school systems. She has devoted a lot of her research this year to helping our own in house therapists develop the content for our upcoming Therapies in the School Conference in November in Massachusetts.
Please join us in welcoming Nisha to the ERI family.
We would like to share this newsletter from our popular speaker; Bobbi Pineda.Her work in the Washington University OT NICU lab centers around bridging the gap in services from NICU to home, so that infants can continue to receive quality and continuous therapy services to improve health and well-being. The OT NICU lab is part of Washington University, where she mentors OT graduate students on neonatal therapy and aids them in conducting clinical research that can impact the lives of those who start their lives in the NICU.
Currently, the lab is working on the pilot phase of the Supporting and Enhancing NICU Sensory Experiences (SENSE) Project and looking to jump straight into the randomized control trial. This project involves providing positive sensory experiences for infants in the NICU as well as educating parents on how to provide for their child’s sensory needs every day of NICU hospitalization. When parents do not engage in the NICU, a sensory support team addresses the infant’s sensory needs. The sensory support team is made up of OT graduate students who provide positive sensory exposures to infants in the NICU at the bedside. We thank the University Research Strategic Alliance and the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation for their support of the SENSE project.
We are excited to have been awarded an SBIR grant from NIH for the development of a new bottle technology, the Preemie Pacer. The goal of this bottle is safe oral feeding through paced feedings during a time when suckswallow- breathe coordination is suboptimal. The first phase of the grant involves prototype development, laboratory testing, and focus groups.
Baby Bridge started as a pilot program in January of 2016 in order to address a gap in therapy services for infants following discharge from the NICU. Since the onset of the program, Baby Bridge has seen 70 infants in the NICU and in their homes. Baby Bridge has seen many changes in the past year and now provides treatment for infants born preterm as well as others who are eligible for First Steps early intervention programming and live in the immediate St. Louis area and surrounding counties. We welcome Elizabeth Heiny as our newest occupational therapist in the OT NICU lab, who serves as the Baby Bridge therapist.
The development of the Neonatal Eating Outcome (NEO) assessment was completed September 2016, and now the tool is available to the public for research and clinical practice. The NEO is a developmental feeding assessment of oral motor and feeding skills, designed for preterm infants prior to and at term equivalent age. It attempts to gauge normal versus abnormal progression of feeding across differing postmenstrual ages (PMA). It can be used with breast or bottle-fed infants. Reliability and validity have been assessed. RASCH analysis and other psychometrics continue.
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
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 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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We would like to share this newsletter from our popular speaker; 
Amber Valentine[/caption]
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.