Early Intervention for Motor Performance

From pregnancy to age 2 is arguably the most important developmental window of our lifetimes.

This makes the work of OTs who work with this age incredibly important. And, for the rest of us, we should be using our professional knowledge to advocate for the proper support for families at this critically important window.

In this one hour podcast course, we are looking at a broad systematic review about OT motor inventions for children ages 0-5.

The importance of this paper cuts across multiple practice areas, but we are going to use this paper as a jumping off point to talk about early intervention. We will be joined by Sarah Putt, OTR/L to talk about her EI experience—and more broadly about the opportunities and challenges of early childhood support that we all need to be tuned into.

1. You will be able to identify OT motor interventions for ages 0-5 that have strong evidence.

2. You will be able to recognize OT EI motor interventions that have moderate evidence.

• Intro

• Breakdown and analysis of journal article

  • Intro to OT motor skills interventions for 0-5 year olds

  • What was the intent of this study?

  • What were their methods?

  • What were their results?

  • Discussion/Conclusions/Implications

  • Takeaways for OT practitioners

• Discussion on practical implications for OTs (with Sarah Putt)

  1. Can you tell me how you first found OT?

  2. What drew you into forming your own EI business?

  3. How is OT in the EI setting unique?

  4. Can you tell your specific EI location and how is that different from others?

  5. What were your initial impressions of this article?

  6. I’m curious if motor skills is one of the main reasons kids are referred to EI? What does your referral process look like overall?

  7. The article mentioned multiple assessments, did those seem familiar to you- are there other EI assessments you rely on (motor focused or otherwise?)

  8. What stood out to you about the different treatments?

  9. The importance of parent involvement was a big general take-away from the article, can you tell me what that looks like in your practice?

  10. We see this trend both in the article and the supporting research that as little as an additional hour of therapy per month can lead to better functional outcomes- what are the barriers to achieving this?

  11. As OTs, we know that  birth to age three is one of the most important windows of opportunities for development—I feel like as a society we have historically under invested in this time period. How can we as a profession support EI?

  12. How has being a new mom changed how you aspire to show up as an EI therapist?

Primary

• Interventions within the scope of occupational therapy practice to improve motor performance for children ages 0–5 years: A systematic review

Additional

• Caregiver coaching in early intervention: A scoping review

• Timing and intensity of early intervention service use and outcomes among a safety-net population of children

Mentioned OT EI Assessments

• Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS)

• Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for Infants and Children

• Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development

• Developmental Assessment of Young Children

• The Developmental Profile (DP-4)

• Early Learning Accomplishment Profile – E-LAP

• Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP)

• Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MESL)

• Peabody Developmental Motor Scales

• REEL-4: Receptive-Expressive Emergent Language Test

• Sensory Profile

It is the policy of OT Potential to disclose any financial and non-financial interest the provider or instructor may have in a product or service mentioned during an activity. This is to ensure that the audience is made aware of any bias of the speaker.

OT Potential pays guest speakers an honorarium for their participation, either directly or to an institution of the speaker's choosing at their request. We invite guests whose expertise often comes from practices, programs, or building products in their field. Where a speaker has a financial interest in the subject of a course, we disclose it below so you can weigh it for yourself.

OT Potential's interest in this topic: We have no financial stake in this topic.

Speaker interests: Sarah Putt is founder and clinical director of Sarah Bryan Therapy, an early intervention practice that provides the services discussed in this course.