Michaela Stackhouse and Leslie Hill are occupational therapists at Anderson School, a private special education school in Andover, MA for students with complex medical needs, ages three up to 16 years old.
When these two women share their career journey and how they chose occupational therapy working with students with significant medical needs, both their faces light up. “These kids are my jam,” states Leslie. Michaela explains how her dad inspired her career choice when he launched a martial arts studio and a young boy with autism joined. He could not tolerate touch, yet persevered over the years in a place where physical contact was the focus. When it came time for Michaela to head off to college to study occupational therapy, that boy gave Michaela a big send-off hug. That experience led her to Anderson School. Together, these two OT professionals provide occupational therapy to each student at Anderson School.
Occupational Therapy – An Overview
Each student at Anderson School has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that commonly includes occupational therapy to help each student perform daily tasks and leisure activities; the things we all need to do and want to do. While some students can walk, most students use wheelchairs. A majority of the students have CVI (cortical visual impairment) and use speech-generating devices to communicate. Some students even use eye gaze-operated speech devices. When asked what occupational therapy looks like for Anderson School students, Michaela and Leslie succinctly explain that their focus is on ensuring each student has access to education, has fun each day, feels safe, and has opportunities for autonomy, and ownership of self-care and daily living skills.
Throughout the school week, Leslie and Michaela provide individual occupational therapy for each student focused on their unique OT goals. Additionally, they work closely with the other therapists and professionals at Anderson School, including, but not limited to, speech language pathologists, physical therapists, Teacher of the Visually Impaired (TVI), Teacher of the Deaf (TOD), and Orientation and Mobility (O&M) specialists. Occupational therapy is also naturally incorporated into school activities such as cooking or science where helping a student access education supports their occupational therapy goals.
Occupational therapy spans a wide variety of abilities including motor skills, access, feeding skills, self-care skills, self-expression, and leisure and play skills. These two occupational therapists have a lot on their plates in developing each student’s individual OT-related goals and then creating and implementing weekly plans to make progress towards the goals.
As Leslie shares, their work demands intellect and creativity. Personally, her career choice is affirmed regularly. Working with these students is precisely where she belongs as ‘the ideas flow’ and she is excited and energized.
Occupational Therapy – Shifting the student’s mindset
Leslie explains that typically for students with complex medical needs, much is ‘done to’ them. Through occupational therapy, their goal is to shift that so that the student is part of the process and what they want done and how it is done is communicated, understood, and abided by. While most Anderson School students will have the assistance of a caregiver throughout their life, occupational therapy focuses on helping each student participate in these essential personal routines. Specifically, when it comes to self-care, OT helps students with goals such as helping to dress themselves, hanging up their backpack, washing their hands, and self-regulation or co-regulation. For some, improving fine motor skills and upper body strength are goals while for others helping to feed themselves is a primary OT goal.
Creativity Abounds
At Anderson School, the creativity of these occupational therapists seems endless! They are continuously developing fun and challenging ways to help each student make progress across a large spectrum of developmental areas.
A recent Friday was deemed ‘Game Club’ for two students. Both participating students love sports so Game Club began by choosing their theme song (”Thunderstruck” by AC/DC), choosing the sport (Basketball) and each student choosing their team colors (Red for one student and orange for the other – well, he wanted more colors but settled on orange as the primary one). Each student used his device to communicate his choices. When “Thunderstruck” was played as a theme song option, one student reacted with “awesome sauce!”
Emotion bingo was another recent activity where speech and occupational therapy combined for a creative exercise focused on identifying feelings and emotions. Sensory bean bags were made, each with a photo of a child exhibiting an emotion (e.g., sad, angry, happy). Each student used their devices to identify the emotion depicted on the sensory bean bags. This activity is part of an overarching OT goal to help each student self-regulate their emotions, first learning how to identify feelings and express their emotions. Then, with these core skills, the focus shifts to helping them learn to regulate their emotions to enable them to learn while at school, cooperate with other students, and be able to advocate for themselves.
One Example of an OT Accomplishment
A student was continuing to drink from a bottle. For her own social awareness and development, Michaela wanted to help the student to move away from the bottle and drink from a cup like other children her age. Over time, Michaela worked with her, helping her to learn how to hold the cup handles and navigate the cup up to her mouth. Today, this student is drinking from an open cup, and with some assistance is holding the cup handles. This accomplishment was a huge source of pride for the student, and the entire Anderson School staff celebrated this meaningful accomplishment.
Inclusion – A Special Benefit of Anderson School
The students at Anderson School share a building and a beautiful playground with Partners in Child Development’s preschool, Woodbridge School. The location of both schools is a bonus for all students as they get to know each other and build relationships. Michaela explains that as part of occupational therapy for one student, she has the student join Woodbridge School students at mealtime so he can learn self-feeding skills from peer models in his age group. The Woodbridge School students display their natural curiosity in asking questions and consistently display a sweetness to their Anderson School friends that melts the staff’s hearts.
We Salute Our Occupational Therapists
Anderson School is grateful for all our specialists and educators who together make Anderson School a special place for children to have the opportunity to have a meaningful educational experience. We salute Michaela and Leslie and the incredible work they do as occupational therapists. They are examples of the dedicated, highly-educated, and skilled professionals who meet each student where they are and work with them to help them maximize their fullest potential.
If you are interested in learning more about Anderson School, please contact us. We welcome the opportunity to learn more about you and your student and schedule a tour.
