Louisiana  State University School of Health Sciences

Taming the Sensory System: The Neurofunctional Approach to Learning
at the  42nd National Conference & Exposition, which will be held in Orlando, Florida

at the Gaylord Palms Hotel and Convention Center on July 6-9, 2011.

Fall 2010

Welcome BACK after a hopefully relaxing summer!!  Here at CSS we were busy with programs at PACE Academy (our 9^th year there!!) and St. Martin’s Episcopal Schools.

As well as programs in our Clinic.

So now it is….

Back to school time and lots of happenings at CSS to share!!

Our US trademarked social skills group, POP™, Personal Options and Preferences™ is starting October 6^th  and goes for 7 consecutive Wednesdays from 4-5:30 at our Dunwoody Clinic.

I call it our “friends group with an educational focus” and I look forward to sharing this time with all of you.  Using 2 OTR’s and Registered Music Therapist, POP™ is as much about making friends with yourself as it is making friends with others!

School is the place where children learn to compromise, exchange thoughts, ideas and feelings and the basics of social navigation.  This group is about how to be your own best advocate without being aggressive; how to stick up for yourself without sticking out, it is about listening and not just hearing; it is about getting the job done in the time allotted, but most of all it is about self-awareness and confidence.

We only accept 6 children so register early to reserve your child’s spot!! Download the application form and fax or email it in today!!

We welcome referrals, so if you know someone who might be interested please have them give us a call!!

There is a new Blog on the web!!!

LDmadeEasy.blogspot.com  It is full of information about children with special needs, for families who care for the children and professionals who work with both!

It is hopefully an opportunity to share thoughts, address concerns and be a resource to those seeking answers, wanting to vent frustrations, or get direction on how to get to the right professional.

It is my intention to make this a time for us to “meet” and get to know more about our children.

The Modified Developmental Preschool™ is still evolving.  To better accommodate the families with these children the program has been revised.  It will operate from 9-11:45 with 2 and 3 morning options.  It will be supervised and structured by an OTR and will as the program progresses have once a week Registered Music Therapy and Speech Therapy embedded in the program.

Using Head Start developmental goals and Nayce approved curriculums, children will get the academic basics, as well as addressing their sensory-perceptual needs met!

MATH AND SCIENCE TUTORING

NOW RESUMING:  Provided by GA Tech Professor David Orloff, PhD (retired) Mechanical Engineering.  Have your child tutored by an award-wining professor in all math subjects, physics and chemistry.

Please call the Children’s Special Services, LLC office at 770-394-9791 for more information.

I look forward to hearing from you.  It is my honor to work with your children, and you.

These children are often on difficult paths, and I take seriously my role to smooth out some of the “developmental bumps” for them.

Thoughtfully,

Susan

Susan N. Schriber Orloff, OTR/L

CEO/Executive Director

Children’s Special Services, LLC

by Susan Orloff

School success is, for the most part, measured by grades. It is about the acquisition and utilization of information. It is about math, reading, science and social studies and all the nuanced and/or expanded categories that are associated with these areas of learning.

Do not get me wrong, I am one of those that remains horrified when Jay Leno goes on the “street” and people do not know basic facts. Basic facts, gleaned from structured learning are essential for creative thought. It is the foundation upon which curiosity is formed.

But there are other competencies as well. These are subtler, and although there are no specific grades for them, they are nonetheless important and when impaired can negatively impact those all-important grades.

There are neurological competencies: hearing, balance (gravitational responses), touch, vision and cognition/attention. At the root of these skills is the ability to sit in the chair and have enough attention to hear, understand and follow directions.

Physical competencies are self-evident, a child must be able to move and handle basic needs in the general classroom settings. However, deficits with strength and endurance can be major deterrents to academic success. Think of the child with hypotonia or mitochondrial disorders, these children fatigue quickly and often have transient endurance. Staying engaged is not about lack of attention or investment with these children but real physical limitations.

Emotional stability in young children is often fragile, even in the child without developmental concerns. When issues with peer relationships, responses to authority, frustration levels, and group interactions are inadequate; the ability to learn is often impaired as well.

Processing information, the organization of data, as well as the ability to prioritize and express thoughts, ideas and feelings appropriately are essential developmental cognitive skills. These skills stimulate motivation, the acquisition of transitional task abilities, memory long and short-term, task judgments (inclusive of the ability to benefit from criticism) and, the all important skill of task/self-care independence.

It is the encompassing sensory integrative therapies that address these competencies helping to create the comfortable child; one who is at ease in his/her own body, free to play and explore.

The child who consistently chooses sedentary play; drawing, computer games, etc., rejecting running and (even non-competitive) group interactive games and activities may be telling teachers, parents, and therapists that movement is somehow threatening. This child may be very good in academic areas, but it is the ability to play freely that is impaired. Unaddressed, long-term this could impact social skills and self-esteem.

Such a child is best illustrated by this brief case description:
Bobby is a bright 10-year old boy who is good at writing stories and drawing pictures. In school he has won art and story contests. He has a small group of friends, and seems relatively well liked within this group. Recess is the worst time of day for him. He does not catch, he flinches when a ball is thrown to him, and does not enter into any activity where he might fall or bump into someone. Even in warm weather he prefers to wear long sleeves. He is very sensitive to corrective remarks, stresses “out” easily and does not like to be challenged either intellectually or physically. He has limited physical play interaction with his 7-year old (much more active younger brother. He is kind, thoughtful and introspective. Although he will always probably be more quiet than boisterous, would this child benefit from sensory integrative interventions?

From the above information, I feel that Bobby is an ideal candidate for short-term interventions so that he can relax more, stress less, and increase interactive abilities. Probably best addressed in summer, participation in therapeutic camps that support graded sensory activities such as hiking, harnessed rock climbing, zip-line games, etc., would go a long way to help him enjoy his own physicality and fully utilize those competencies needed to support school and life skill success.

Doing “good in school” is so much more than grades. It is, as in most things, not necessarily the words or the subjects that are most important, but the spaces in-between. We find children such as “Bobby” in these spaces, and they too, should not be “left behind”. Sensory integrative interventions can be a primary factor in creating the competencies needed for an inclusive healthy development; for Bobby and many other similar children. (originally published in Advance for Occupational Therapy 2009)

• Ginny Scardina–original Ayres trainer
• Nedra Gillette–TOTEMS director
• Claire Spackman–teacher at U of PA (Willard too)
• Jay Berlkehammer, MD–Director of Pediatrics CHOA
• Darcy Steinberg–Director of American Academy of Pediatric Residency
• Yvonne Norton, MA, OTR/L
• And, the very well known: Jean Ayres at U of MD Clinic

During her notable career of 35 years, Susan has helped develop several programs for children who learn differently, including her recently trademarked handwriting program entitled “W.I.N. – Write Incredibly Now” and “Handwriting on the Wall” through which she has developed a method of applying a series of OT techniques which take children (who have handwriting challenges) from “labored” to “legible” in 12 sessions. Using manipulatives, movement and color-coded visualizations, this US Trademarked program incorporates the whole body into the process of making handwriting automatic and stress-free. The before and after handwriting samples of these children have amazed many educators.

Susan has published 26 journal articles, and has attained the status of being a regular columnist (not an easy status to achieve) for both:

• Exceptional Parent Magazine, (which is a publicly distributed magazine for families of children with special needs).
• Advance for Occupational Therapy, (which every therapist has a subscription to).
• The Jewish Times (which is distributed throughout the Southeast)

In Exceptional Parent Magazine, her column is titled: “Ask the Therapist “. It is an on-going monthly column, and has been receiving excellent reviews since its inception in 2004.

her column in Advance for Occupational Therapy, is titled “The Sensory Scene “, and it appears 7 times per year.

Her column in The Jewish Times is titled: “Guide to walking the Learning Path”, and this column appears quarterly.

She is also a contributing author to:

• Instructor Magazine
• AOTA’s OT Practice

Her recent “BOOK” publications include:

• “Light at the end of the Tunnel “, (with contributions from Elaine Wilco, LPC) navigating the academic path for a child who learns differently. –in progress
• “Learning Re-enabled”, book and well known guide for parents, teachers and therapists on learning disabilities and advocacy. Released…December, 2001 (published by Children’s Special Services. LLC)
• The **National Education Association proclaimed “Learning Re-enabled” as their “Book of the Month” in November 2002
• Alain Jehelen, who is the Editor of the “National Education Association’s” “NEA Today” reviewed the first edition of “Learning Re-Enabled”.
• Eric Jacobson, who is the Director of the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities; and the Director of Education Research information Center (ERIC), selected “Learning Re-enabled” to be included in the Center’s library.
• “Learning Re-enabled”, volume II, revised and expanded version–publisher Elsevier Book Science/Harcourt Grace was released in the Spring of 2004
• “Handwriting on the Wall” excerpted by Advance Magazine for Occupational Therapy in 2003. Publication by on-going seminars through Advanced Rehabilitation Services, Inc. (ARS, a national AOTA Approved Provider of continuing education for occupational therapists.)

Susan is the co-chair of the GOTA PR Committee, as well as being busy making a name for GA (OTs) and providing local therapists with “professional presence” within other professional and related organizations. She is actively involved (as an OT) in the following organizations:

• NBCOT National Board Certification Occupational Therapy: item writer for the national registration examination: area Pediatrics
• Autism One Radio—-Quarterly Host 1/2 program broadcast on the Internet
• GA Advocacy Council (for parents and professionals seeking help for children with special needs)
• American Association of Educational Therapists
• GA Parent and Professional Advocacy Association
• Council for Exceptional Children
• National Council of Learning Disabilities
• Jewish Family and Career Services “Copes” Counseling Committee
• (Founding) Executive Board member, AMIT, learning disabilities Committee, Jewish Educational Services, Atlanta, GA
• Developmental Task Force, Atlanta Jewish Federation
• Learning Disabilities Assoc. Of America
• National Council of Jewish Women
• Ga. Assoc. for learning Disabilities

Her list of additional achievements and recognitions includes:

• Participating in the early standardization of “Ayres Southern California Sensory Integration Tests”.
• Being the only occupational therapist in the state of Georgia to be accepted into the American Association of Educational Therapists (primarily Psychologists, PhD Audiologists, PhD testing and counseling and assessment specialists and school administrators.)
• Receiving the “Georgia Woman of Distinction” award from the GA and TN chapters of the Crohn’s Foundation (for her work with children who have special needs)

She also received 2 awards from the South Carolina OT Association:

• Certificate of Appreciation (for educational services)
• Outstanding Educator Award

In addition, Susan has been a continuing education instructor for several years, for Advanced Rehabilitation Services, Inc. (ARS) presenting intensive hands-on courses that provide the occupational therapist with a variety of skills that lead to the attainment of quickly achieved positive outcomes with children who have difficulty writing.

In addition to her seminar presentations for continuing education, Susan has made 38 major presentations at numerous conferences, universities and special events, including 4 consecutive years at the “International Learning Disabilities Annual Conferences” (ILDA)