Essentials of Sensory Integration Assessment Part One: Clinical Assessment of Sensory Integration in Diverse Environments

  • Presenter: Teresa A. May-Benson, ScD, OTR/L, FAOTA
  • Level: Advanced.
  • Access: All parts of the course, including assignments, must be completed within a 2 month viewing window.
  • Contact Hours: 7.0 contact hours
  • AOTA Areas: Assessment
  • Audience: Occupational therapists, OT assistants, physical therapists, PT assistants, speech and language therapists
  • Completion Requirements: To earn contact hours for this course participants must view this course in its entirety, and successfully complete the accompanying course quiz
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Course overview

Every therapist will encounter situations where their tried and true standardized assessments are simply inappropriate. These situations are especially common when working with children with sensory integration concerns or those with autism, who may not tolerate the demands of standardized tests, or when working outside a traditional clinic, such as in the case of school-based and early intervention therapists and mental health practitioners.

This course demonstrates how to observe and identify modulation and discrimination problems outside of the standardized sensory integration assessment. With the help of lecture, case studies, and video analysis participants will fine tune observations and enhance clinical reasoning skills that can be used in the classroom, the home, and other clinical settings.

This course, in conjunction with Essentials of Sensory Integration Assessment: Part 2, will provide participants with a solid foundation for clinical assessment of sensory integration differences in children.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course participants will be able to:

Identify ways to supplement standardized test results with observations of daily life activities.

Recognize limitations of standardized test results when assessing the full range of sensory processing problems.

Identify a framework to organize observations sensory problems in daily life activities.

Agenda

  • Introduction to Sensory Integration Differences and Clinical Assessment (1:30 hrs)
  • Clinical Assessment of Sensory Modulation (1:20 hrs)
  • Clinical Assessment of Sensory Discrimination (2:30 Hrs)
  • Interpreting Clinical Assessment Observations (1 Hr)
Teresa A. May-Benson,
ScD, OTR/L, FAOTA

Teresa is an expert occupational therapist renowned for her clinical research, mentoring and education related to related to sensory integration theory and intervention, praxis, and social competency. She is currently the owner/CEO of TMB Education, LLC and serves as President and practicing occupational therapist at OTR, Inc, a private occupational therapy practice specializing in sensory integration and social competency for children and adults across the lifespan, located near Philadelphia, PA. Dr. May-Benson has a diverse background as a clinical practitioner, having worked in private and public-school settings as well as private practice. She has authored numerous book chapters and articles on praxis and sensory integration and completed her doctoral dissertation on ideational praxis. Teresa is an education and research faculty member at the SPIRAL Foundation. In her role of educator, she currently serves as adjunct faculty at Widener University and is past faculty at Tufts University and the University of Indianapolis. She has received the Virginia Scardinia Award of Excellence from AOTA for her work in ideational praxis and is the 2023 recipient of the AOTF A. Jean Ayres Award.

ADA/Section 504: If you require special accommodations, please contact courses@thespiralfoundation.org

Cancellation Policies: Available here
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