I received my BA at Bates College in Latin American Studies and my Masters of Science in Occupational Therapy at Arizona School of Health Sciences. I started my OT career 16 years ago providing OT services to adults with spinal cord injuries at National Rehabilitation Hospital. Over the past seven years, I have provided school-based OT services at Latin American Montessori Bilingual Public Charter School and DC International School in Washington, DC. In the school setting, I help students achieve academic success by strengthening their organization, attention, self-regulation, handwriting, self-advocacy, and mindfulness skills. I love knowing I am contributing to my students' love of learning and helping them recognize their unique strengths. Outside of work, I am a proud mom of two young sons and love any adventure in nature, art of many forms, cooking healthfully, and sweating from a great bootcamp or jogging workout!
Can you tell us a little bit about your field? What does an occupational therapist do?
Occupational therapy (OT) focuses on the complex, dynamic relationship between people, their roles (or occupations), and environments. As a school-based occupational therapist, I am able to analyze the components of a task and identify the areas that present a challenge for a person. I figure out a way to simplify the task or break it down into various parts for a person to be able to accomplish it with greater ease, confidence, and success. With students, we may work on daily living tasks such as dressing, shoe-tying, and staying seated while eating; academic tasks like handwriting with correct size and understanding how to edit written work; or self-care tasks, such as improving focus, reducing anxiety, and increasing body awareness. I incorporate approaches from sensorimotor, visual-perceptual, socio-emotional, and trauma-informed frameworks. I incorporate visual arts and nature into my services to expand my students’ growth and learning.
What made you decide to become an occupational therapist?
In my early teen years, I stayed with my extended family in NYC for the summers, and I helped take care of my young cousins there. When my cousin May was about 3 years old, she developed a condition in which she lost her ability to speak and most of her motor skills. I went with her to her medical and therapy appointments and remember the joy she had when she worked with her OTs, in particular. They would help her become more independent, and they creatively problem-solved with her family to make sure she could maximize her abilities and still be an engaged and happy little girl. After graduating from OT school, I started my OT career at National Rehabilitation Hospital, where I specialized in spinal cord injuries and learned many skills working with people with physical disabilities. After I had children of my own, I became a school-based OT, where I got more personally connected (or reconnected, since I taught elementary school for three years in New York City before OT school) to child development and pediatric concerns. I love that occupational therapy is such a creative and dynamic field that often mirrors the experiences of my clients.
How have you melded your skill set with Montessori philosophy?
I was an occupational therapist at a bilingual Spanish/English Montessori public charter school in Washington, DC for over seven years. It was a wonderful opportunity because I had my own caseload of students who had IEPs (Individual Education Plans), while I also consulted with classroom guides to support my students’ and other students’ learning. I felt like I had a significant impact on many students. I learned a great deal about the power of observation and following students’ lead to guide my approaches and ways of reaching my students’ motivations and interests. The use of natural materials, the importance of being mindful of the space and sensorial experiences for children, and the amount of ritual and routine with all aspects of learning are very connected to occupational therapy philosophies as well.
What are some common challenges you face in your field?
I work with most of my students individually or in small groups, and they can master skills while they are working with me in my OT space through a variety of therapeutic techniques such as repetition, backward chaining, or task simplification. Then, when they are asked to apply those same skills in the general classroom setting, they can have difficulty with carryover. When they are barraged with multiple sensory stimuli, social factors, and academic demands, they can fall back into old habits or decompensate. Helping them recognize how to access the learned skills and what factors contribute to their challenges is key. It is amazing when they can learn to self-advocate and use appropriate, pro-social requests for certain tools that will help them tackle their assignments.
If you could give parents some tips from the field of Occupational Therapy what would they be?
The importance of the willingness to play and engage with your child, balanced with the ability to set limits for our kids. Like Jane Nelsen, the Positive Discipline Montessorian, has said, “Parents must set limits for young children and involve their older children in helping to set limits. Your job is to set the parameters, like the sides of a bridge.” Children feel much safer and a better sense of her/himself when they can trust that an adult has predictable expectations and their physical and emotional safety are ensured through clear boundaries. I recently helped set limits with my older son and his cell phone over vacation. He has an old phone with only calling and texting capabilities that he uses on school days to communicate with my husband and me while getting to and from school on public transportation. He asked if he could use it over the week vacation, and I asked him to give me three reasons why he thought it was necessary (thinking he might not be able to). After thinking for a few minutes, he said, “I want to stay in touch with my friends because that is really important to me now in middle school; I want to be able to plan to meet up with them at least a few times; and I want to be able to talk to my science partner about our project.” I was surprised and impressed with his valid reasoning, and we discussed that he could use it for 30 minutes a day. Additionally, in order to encourage verbal communication, which we value, he would be granted 10 extra minutes if he wanted to use that time to call his friends.
If you could give teachers / guides some tips from the field of Occupational Therapy, what would they be?
I would remind teachers/guides that a student’s behavior is often a child’s way of communicating a need. It can be very helpful to ask a student what and how he is feeling. It might be effective to say, “I notice you have not started your math work. Do you need my help getting it started or is there another tool that might help, like a checklist/visual guide/fidget/water break/deep breaths/partner model, etc.?” Often students’ misbehavior can be saying, “I want to belong”, but they have not developed the skills to be able to pro-socially ask for help or to engage with their peers or environment in a developmentally appropriate way.
Do you have any interesting anecdotes from your work with children that you can share?
One of my students shared with me that, “I don’t really think anything” about the threat of gun violence among [my] school community, “because it happens around where I live all of the time.” I had never had a young person say those words to me before. My heart broke for his reality. I used the moment as an opportunity to help him learn a bit more about himself. I shared with him that his experience is not typical for his age and can greatly affect his attention and ability to self-regulate and calm. He is digesting this information, and we have been focusing on mindfulness and recognizing signs of dysregulation in his sessions. With time, he is becoming more comfortable with these strategies and has guided a few of his classmates through some techniques he has learned. Working with teens and exploring my own personal past has helped me become acutely aware of how trauma impacts my students, their learning, and their resilience. Teens can be so honest and raw - and often are very open to take on new perspectives and ideas, since they are still figuring out their place in the world.