Advertise on podcast: Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast

Send us a Text or Voicemail Cerebral palsy interventions work best when matched to a child's GMFCS level, and one umbrella review sorts the evidence into green, yellow, and red. Michelle reviews what it found across postural control, postural management, and tone management, including one green-light intervention you may not expect, a few popular approaches the evidence doesn't support, and why the same intervention can be right for a child at level II and wrong for a child at level V. We break down what to trial this week based on the child in front of you. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too. Toohey, M., Blatch-Williams, R., Budini, K., Ferreira, A., Griffin, A., Hines, A., Jackman, M., Lind, K., Massey, J., Mc Namara, M., Mitchell, J., Morgan, C., Norfolk, E., Paton, M. C. B., Polyblank, D., Reedman, S., & Novak, I. (2024). Effectiveness of postural interventions in cerebral palsy: Umbrella systematic review. Paediatrics and Child Health, 34(8), 257–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paed.2024.06.003  Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Weighted blankets show up in therapy rooms, bedrooms, and shopping carts. Lacy and Michele discuss three recent reviews on weighted blankets for sleep, pain, mood, and daily function. Learn who they seem to help most (and who they don't) and where the research still has gaps.  We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original articles too. Dawson, S., Charlton, K., Ng, L., Cleland, J., Bulto, L., Page, M., & Attrill, S. (2024). Weighted blankets as a sleep intervention: A scoping review. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 78(5), Article 7805205160. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2024.050676   Yu, J., Yang, Z., Sun, S., Sun, K., Chen, W., Zhang, L., Xu, J., Xu, Q., Liu, Z., Ke, J., Zhang, L., & Zhu, Y. (2024). The effect of weighted blankets on sleep and related disorders: A brief review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, Article 1333015. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1333015  Jaślikowska, A., Niderla, N., Rzeszutek, J., Rachwał, N., Grzyb, W., Kurnik, M., Grzybowska, D., Idzik, K., & Kubicki, A. (2026). Weighted blankets as a non-pharmacological intervention for sleep, mental and neurodevelopmental disorders: A narrative review. Journal of Education, Health and Sport, 95, Article 73069. https://doi.org/10.12775/JEHS.2026.95.73069  Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Pediatric OTs use play in nearly everything we do, but how much of it is actually play? In this episode, we review the play-work continuum, which separates free play from play as a vehicle for goals. Michele also shares 10 ways to apply it in your sessions, from writing goals for play to setting up the environment and how to facilitate safe rough-and-tumble play. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too.  Brown, T., & Lynch, H. (2023). Children's play–work occupation continuum: Play-based occupational therapy, play therapy and playwork. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 90(3), 249–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/00084174221130165  Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Sensory garments are everywhere and frequently marketed to our clients and families — but almost none of the research asks what happens after a parent clicks "buy." This episode discusses a study with off-the-shelf sensory garments and their impact on participation for autistic children. The results split in a way that may change how you talk to families about these products — and expose a bigger problem with how we measure outcomes for autistic kids in the first place. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too. Mische Lawson, L., Foster, L., Hamner, K., & Wright, L. (2022). Exploring effects of sensory garments on participation of children on the autism spectrum: A pretest-posttest repeated measure design. Occupational Therapy International, 2022, Article 3540271. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/3540271   Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Up to 50% of kids with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) also have ADHD — and that overlap changes how motor gains actually stick. We're back with another episode on CO-OP: goal, plan, do, check, and 8 strategies for building motor skills through problem-solving instead of repetition. If you've been using a repetition-based, motor-learning approach with a child and haven’t seen much success, this episode has an alternative worth trying. And....if you missed it, check out our other episode on CO-OP with episode 35. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too.  Izadi-Najafabadi, S., Gunton, C., Dureno, Z., & Zwicker, J. G. (2022). Effectiveness of Cognitive Orientation to Occupational Performance intervention in improving motor skills of children with developmental coordination disorder: A randomized waitlist-control trial. Clinical Rehabilitation, 36(6), 776–788. https://doi.org/10.1177/02692155221086188 Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail “You gain what you train” — but what does that actually look like session to session? In this episode, Michele and Lacy review a case study that has all the ingredients of a solid motor learning intervention for self-feeding with a spoon. We talk through how the intervention was built, what actually improved (and what didn't), and where the study's limitations leave room to make this more practical — think play, caregiver coaching, adaptive tools.  We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too. Jajal, R. N., Vaghela, M. R., & Patel, B. N. (2026). Establishing independent spoon feeding through a structured motor-based shaping protocol in a child with developmental delay. International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research (IJFMR), 8(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.73433  Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Daily living skill performance can be hard to learn for autistic teens, even when their cognition is average or above average. This episode covers a randomized controlled trial testing a manualized program that teaches laundry, cooking, and money management to autistic adolescents, compared head-to-head with the well-respected PEERS program. We cover the results and how an OT lens could take this already-strong intervention even further.  We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too.  Duncan, A., Meinzen-Derr, J., Ruble, L., Fassler, C., & Stark, L. J. (2023). A randomized clinical trial targeting daily living skills in autistic adolescents without an intellectual disability before the transition to adulthood. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 44(9), e590–e596. https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP.0000000000001222 Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Down syndrome is one of the most common diagnoses OTs work with, yet the research base behind it is surprisingly small. This week, Lacy and Michele discuss a new AJOT scoping review featuring some of the most unexpected interventions they've ever covered, from elephants to qigong massage to traditional dance. Behind the fun, though, is a bigger story about where this research is happening, and where it's falling short.  We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too. Long, K. L., Barrios Lago, M. S., & Nelson, E. L. (2026). Occupational therapy interventions in Down syndrome: A scoping review. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/19437676261464084 Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Picture a beach in Aotearoa New Zealand — a gnarled pōhutukawa tree perfect for climbing, a rope swing hanging over the sand, and a stick sized exactly to a child's height, ready for a game passed down through generations. In this milestone 80th episode, we sit down with, Susi King, a Playmaker from New Zealand to explore how culture, land, and indigenous wellbeing frameworks shape pediatric OT practice on the other side of the world. And, hear about the new burnout-day tradition she shares with her whole team and the talking button she never travels without.  Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail A 6 year-old can't hold onto multi-step directions long enough to follow them — not because he isn't listening, but because his working memory drops the information before he can act on it. This week, Michele brings a real case to the table and digs into a 2024 study comparing two cognitive strategies — enactment and visualization — to see which one actually helps kids with autism and intellectual disability with working memory. Spoiler: one of them is the clear winner, and it's not the one you'd expect if you've ever thought about autistic kids as natural visual thinkers. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too.  Xie, T., Ma, H., Wang, L., & Du, Y. (2024). Can enactment and motor imagery improve working memory for instructions in children with autism spectrum disorder and children with intellectual disability? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 54(1), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05780-z  Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Can a therapist facilitate meaningful handwriting improvement through telehealth? A recent randomized controlled trial out of Ankara, Turkey put that question to the test with kids ages six to eight with the inattentive type of ADHD — and the results are not what Lacy and Michele expected. Listen to hear what the researchers actually did over eight weeks of telehealth sessions and why the approach "shouldn't" have worked. Plus: a Nailed It story with  an escalating four-year-old and a floor-mat find that solved a years-long clinic space war. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too. Kaplan Kılıç, B., Bumin, G., & Öğütlü, H. (2025). Effect of telerehabilitation on handwriting performance in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: Randomized controlled trial. Child: Care, Health and Development, 51(e70055). https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.70055   Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Michele found 74 outcome measures to consider for her autistic preschoolers! She and Lacy discuss the top measures from the recent scoping review: which tools show up most in the research, which ones earn a five-star rating for covering the most ground, and where our biggest blind spot as OTs is hiding. Plus, hear about a fun self-care app that may help you as we head into the new school year.  We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too.  Ghahramani, S., Hassani Mehraban, A., Alizadeh Zarei, M., & Ghahramani, S. (2024). Occupational therapy outcome measures in preschool children with autism spectrum disorders: A scoping review. OTJR: Occupational Therapy Journal of Research, 44(4), 568–576. https://doi.org/10.1177/15394492241246547 Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Too cartoonish. Too advanced. Too many worksheets — nothing fit, so Lacy built her own money management program from scratch. This week she's breaking down exactly how she did it: from backwards design to key ingredients and changes made along the way, it's a behind-the-scenes look at turning a need into a working program. Plus, a listener question worth its own deep dive on neurodiversity affirming practice.  Request the money management program discussed by using this form. Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail  “Sensory” is everywhere in pediatric OT, but how do you actually know if and when to try a sensory activity schedule? How do you set one up? When do you know if it is working — or if you're just guessing and hoping? This week, Michele walks through her real system for building a sensory activity schedule from the ground up, from figuring out what a kid actually needs, to adapting it to classrooms or homes, to knowing exactly when to call it a win (or cut your losses). Use this link to request the research cheat sheet for sensory activity schedules. Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play

Send us a Text or Voicemail Ep. 74  Michele and Lacy continue their Summer of Discovery series. This time, Lacy shares what she's learned from supervising more than 50 fieldwork students, from building a program to knowing exactly when to loop in the academic fieldwork coordinator (a lesson she learned the hard way, twice). Lacy walks through how she structures orientation, communication, and supervision to turn nervous students into confident new therapists — and shares the one rule she gives every student on their first day. *Student name "Dylan" in the Failed It segment is a pseudonym.  Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️  Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧  Email us a question or comment at [email protected] 👉  Find us on Instagram @ideas.at.play