Everything You Wanted to Know about Switches and More (OT, PT, AT, CSN, F, SLP)
8:45 a.m.–4:15 p.m.
Act 48; Social Work; ACVREP; Infant/Toddler: 6 hours; ASHA: 0.6 CEU; Psych: 6.5 CE hours
When supporting young children and students in their learning with the use of assistive technology, it is critical that switch use is understood, available, and readily implemented. Switch use and its applications need to be encouraged by all members of the student’s support team, including teachers, paraprofessionals, occupational therapists, speech therapists, physical therapists, and all other learning support staff. This workshop will focus on the switches themselves, what is currently available, how they work, how they are used, and how decisions of implementation need to occur, with shared successful strategies of assessment and use. This workshop is truly for those adults who are beginning their journey in AT support, and for all other adults who work with students who need or will need to use switches and assistive technology, especially for augmentative communication, computer access, task participation, and powered mobility. This workshop will contain many examples of real students and their journeys with their use of AT and switch use.
Outcomes
- Identify by name at least three different and specific switches
- Explain the specific characteristics of mechanical switches and electronic switches
- Perform a switch assessment with a specific activity familiar to their student, to include computer access and/or augmentative communication
- Implement the use of a switch in a particular activity new to a student, to include a group task, computer use, and/or augmentative communication
Karen Kangas is currently in private practice, where she treats both children and adults directly, provides consultation to local school teacher/therapy teams and their students, and offers education through clinical workshops. She is a seating, mobility, and positioning specialist as well as an assistive technology specialist. She has also been an adjunct faculty member at Misericordia University for seven years, where she teaches a graduate course on “Seating in Pediatrics” in their Postprofessional Pediatric Certificate program.
Kangas has worked as an OT since 1973 in varied settings, including the school system, early intervention programs, home health, rehabilitation centers, and long-term care facilities. In 1985 she was invited to develop programs to support inclusion and increased independence through the use of seating and access with assistive technology through the Pennsylvania Board of Education’s Bureau of Special Education Assistive Device Center. In 1990 she was invited to initiate an Assistive Technology Assessment Program at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in rehabilitation.
She has been actively teaching since 1985 on Seating and Positioning; Sensory Processing and Sensory Integration as it relates to Seating for Function; Alternative Access and Powered Mobility; and Assessment and Integration of Assistive Technology throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Sweden, Israel, Ireland, Scotland, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. She is currently writing and developing a course study on seating, mobility, and access, as well as completing a book on seating, access, and assistive technology, including powered mobility.
Incorporating Client-Centered Procedures into School-Based OT and PT: A Roundtable Discussion (OT, PT)
Roundtable discussions are designed to provide a short informal presentation on a topic with the focus on how to implement effective practices. This format promotes active dialogue and a question-and-answer format with the participants.
4:30–5:30 p.m.
Act 48; Social Work; ACVREP; ASHA: 0.1 CEU; Psych: 1 CE hour
What does it mean to be “client centered” when delivering school-based therapy services? Are you using a client-centered model in your assessments? Do your intervention procedures reflect your client’s priorities for school outcomes? Come to this roundtable discussion to learn how to implement client-centered practices in school therapy delivery.
Tammy Sarracino, MEd, OTR/L, has been practicing occupational therapy for 29 years, specializing in pediatrics, sensory-related disorders, and school systems. She graduated from Elizabethtown College with a BS in occupational therapy in 1983, and earned her master’s in education from Penn State 1995. She is doing doctoral work in occupational therapy at the University of Kansas.
Sarracino’s professional career includes extensive experience evaluating and treating children with a wide range of diagnoses, including autism spectrum, traumatic brain injury, learning disabilities, mental retardation, visual impairment, hearing impairment, neurological disorders, cerebral palsy, developmental delay, and attention deficit disorder. While she has a clinical specialization in sensory processing issues in children, her expertise includes school systems, behavior, and autism. She has taught undergraduate and continuing education courses on varied topics, including sensory processing, education, behavior, and child development. She has published in national occupational therapy periodicals, and is the primary author of the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association’s position paper on Guidelines for Occupational Therapy Practice in Pennsylvania’s Public Schools.
She is co-owner and director of TherAbilities, a Harrisburg-based pediatric therapy practice. She has mentored, trained, and educated thousands of professionals, students, and parents on issues related to sensory processing, child development, education, autism, and occupational therapy.