lifeskillsOT

Over the last decade of my practice as a school-based therapist, my colleagues and I have noticed a shift in the inclusion of life skills activities as part of the instructional programming for our students with special needs.  This observation is more appreciable in special education classrooms that program for students who are primarily on track to receive a certificate upon graduation versus those who are slated to graduate with a diploma.  In essence, many of these programs are intended to promote the acquisition of academic skills through participation in community based activities.  However, over the years, I have observed a lessening of functional life skills instruction and a swelling emphasis on more traditional academic instruction.  Moreover, teachers with whom I work have complained about the increasing restrictions they experience with adapting the state curriculum to meet the needs of their students with special needs.  Furthermore, with constricting budgets and dwindling resources, some teachers appear to be relying more paper-pencil tasks in lieu of hands-on functional activities.  Certainly, this post is in no way meant to point fingers at hard working teachers.  Rather, I hope to generate discussion as to how we may help school teams bridge domains of traditional curriculum to the provision of life skills activities.

I would like to share a resource that members of our department have found useful.  Ellen Glisan authors two related books which are published by the Attainment Company, Inc.:  1) Life Skill Lessons; and 2) Aligning Life Skills to Academics.  These books provide over 650 life skill lesson plans that correspond to various academic areas such as math, social studies, science/health, and language arts.  For example, reading a thermometer is offered as a science lesson and making leisure choices is presented as a social studies lesson.  These books also outline information for the teacher regarding needed supplies and related objectives.  Each lesson has a corresponding worksheet, however, many are easy to adapt to hands-on experiences.  With the growing curriculum demands that are placed on our students, it seems fitting that our role may be to work with teachers to assist them with pairing domains of traditional academics with functional outcomes.  After all, we are skilled at task analysis and being able to adapt activities…..Food for thought!

I would love to know if you have observed any changes in how functional life skills have been addressed in classrooms over time.  Please feel free to highlight any strategies you have found helpful in bridging life skills to the curriculum and what barriers you have observed.

Thanks for your input!

Alicia Nahas

References: 

Glisan, E. M. (2008).  Aligning life skills to academics.  Verona, Wisconsin:  Attainment Company, Inc.

Glisan, E. M. (2008).  Life skill lessons.  Verona, Wisconsin:  Attainment Company, Inc.

This is the fourth of a six part series dedicated to inspiring leadership on transition teams through the use of resources including evidence, tools and models for high school based practice. Feel free to contribute your own comments about tools and resources you use that are not mentioned here! Please note, in an effort to keep the information in the more casual form of a blog, a reference list is available via email to the author at heatherj@newviewot.com.

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The transition evaluation is an ongoing process that is student-driven based on unique interests, skills and goals. First and foremost, this evaluation process starts and ends with the student driving its course.

The purpose of this post is to share a few key resources with you that can help to guide your contribution and development of an individualized transition plan. These resources were chosen and emphasized based on their occupation-based nature and focus on the individual to gather information for the transition plan.

I encourage readers to choose one or two that you might not have heard of or are not well versed in and explore them. The awareness, use and application of these resources can greatly improve your leadership and impact on high school transition teams.

Please comment with your own assessments you prefer to use and have had success with. 

Frameworks

OT Practice Framework: Domain and Process, 2^nd Edition

http://www.aota.org/Practitioners/Official/Guidelines/41089.aspx?FT=.pdf

- Particularly useful for developing a thorough occupational profile that is a perfect model in developing an individualized transition plan.

Person Centered Planning

- This approach to people and their unique path with a disability is a natural compliment to our occupation-based philosophy.

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/edi/pcp/

Model of Human Occupation

- Not just for mental health interventions, this well-researched model offers tons of student-centered tools for evaluation of all areas of occupation including employment.

http://www.uic.edu/depts/moho/intro.html

Person Environment Occupation Model

- This model does not allow us to forget the dynamic relationship a person has with their environment impacting their occupations. This is important to address in a transition plan.

http://www.mendeley.com/research/ther-personenvironmentoccupation-model-a-transactive-approach-to-occupational-performance/

Assessment Tools

This is not a comprehensive list but one that is short and sweet but with the ability to impact your transition evaluation process within your school.

Assessment of Occupational Functioning (AOF-CV)

http://www.uic.edu/depts/moho/mohorelatedrsrcs.html

Teele Inventory of Multiple Intelligences (TIMI)

http://www.sueteele.com/teele_inventory.html

Enderle Severson Transition Rating Scale (ESTR)

http://www.estr.net/

Wide Range Interest and Occupation Test-2^nd Edition (WRIOT-2)

http://www.pearsonassessments.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/Productdetail.htm?Pid=WRIOT-2&Mode=summary

The Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS)

http://www.ampsintl.com/AMPS/

This is the third of a six part series dedicated to inspiring leadership on transition teams through the use of resources including evidence, tools and models for high school based practice. Feel free to contribute your own comments about tools and resources you use that are not mentioned here! Please note, in an effort to keep the information in the more casual form of a blog, a reference list is available via email to the author at heatherj@newviewot.com.

"If there is a better way to practice, therapists should find it.”-Law & MacDermid

Student-Centered is an Evidence and Ethics-Based Practice

There are misconceptions about evidence-based practice. Before I summarize some recent research that impacts how we prepare students for transition I want to stress one point about the term evidence-based practice.

Many practitioners don’t realize evidence-based practice includes the integration of the student’s wishes, goals, strengths and needs based on our thorough interview and observations of the student; it is not the sole use of research-based activities in practice. 

Evidence-based is student-based.

While school-based practice is not a clinical-based practice, it does require a thorough gathering of all evidence to create an effective, student-oriented IEP— including research based practices to the best extent possible.

 I bring up this point because we owe our students our best effort and avoiding the use of interventions that are shown to work means we are also influencing the possible outcomes of our students. 

Evidence-based is ethics-based.

Evidence that Impacts School-Based Transition Interventions

Lee & Keilhofner (2010)

The factors that impact employment: volition, time not working, previous employment, environmental support, skills, and the workers beliefs about the environment

Becker et al. (2001), Campbell et al. (2010), Drake  et al. (1999), Lehman et al. (2001)

In order to have the best vocational outcomes supported employment and the integration of student work interests and preferences are more supported by evidence than pre-vocational tasks.

Benz, Lindstrom & Yovanoff (2000)

These researchers found that work experience in combination with mastery of individualized transition goals supports best post-school outcomes. More specifically, and importantly they found:

Students who did not feel their transition goals were based on their unique preferences also had worse outcomes in post-secondary employment.

AND

Surveyed students who felt their transition goals were focused on their interests had a greater chance of post-secondary employment.

Rabern, Dunn & Chambers (2010)

In probably the most significant research to determine successful post-secondary outcomes for students these researchers explored what impact employment vs. non-employment at the time of graduation from high school had on students.

87% of 1,393 students who were employed at the time of graduation were still employed one year after graduation.

The Bottom Lines 

1.     We must consider the factors that impact a student’s work success including their desires, if they’ve worked before, how much support they need, how they perceive the workplace and what skills they have to complete the job

2.     Real-life, community based employment with support will give our students better success than simulated pre-vocational tasks

3.     If we do not have individualized transition goals based on the student’s input they are not as likely to be employed or feel positive about their high school experience after graduation

4.     If our students are employed when they graduate they will be more likely to be employed a year after graduation