Week 3 & 4...

Once again the most exciting thing about therapy is the unending scientific and creative process of how to help heal one’s body and mind in a holistic way.

Such as a surgeon tries to continually evolve in finding less invasive techniques and procedures to cut and repair bones and organs; OT’s and other allied therapists persist and practice in finding less invasive ways to adapt a functional activity to a client in order to assist in the occupation of daily living.

What continues to amaze me in the school based OT focus, is the thought that even one individualized activity formulated and focused precisely for that child while seemingly small, can be enormous in molding and shaping their skills, attributes, and attitude for the rest of their lives.

Participating, creating and constantly researching all these incredible therapies in the last several weeks is how I’ve come to my notion of how nature and nurture pertain to occupational therapy.

An OT/OTA is someone who possesses supernatural optimistic intelligence, flexibility and capabilities. They are gentle, fun, sensitive, insightful, and philosophical and embody a great sense of pride, power and privilege in all they can do to improve themselves and others. These are attributes I admire about my soon to be career.

I reflect back to last year’s EW! Reading days when my reader and I would meet at Bluff Elementary long before my OTA fieldwork training started. We had begun to read the story of The Little Prince. A book by Antoine St. Exupery that makes profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature…

... When the ignorance of others sees the OT's time as waste, and the OT as someone who merely plays games with children, assuming, of course, that anyone with any kind of capability could do so…I’d ask them to have a step into my shoes…

It is here and now, on my student affiliation, that I can take the time to see true colors shining through the black and white; how mesmerizing it is to see the students reaction and the connection they have towards that OT who has assisted them since their very first day of school.

When students walk in the room, it’s like their bodies enter into a whole new world of possibilities. While their systems struggle to find the just-right diet, they discover new insight and reflect on ways to act, react, behave, and respectfully gain self gratification and satisfaction. This is nourishment that they can get no where else!

Written by: Kasey Elizabeth Schmidt, OTA Student, River Valley Community College

Posted by: Theresa Chausse

Labels: OTA Student River Valley Community College A Community in Motion Occupational Therapy ADHD Coach New Hampshire Vermont Pediatric School

# posted by Terry Chausse, Practice Manager @ 10:44 PM