Your Pen Pal Al

    Have you ever noticed yourself biting your nails or the end of a pencil when you feel nervous? Or have you ever noticed yourself tapping your foot and wonder how long you've been doing so? Truth be told, we all participate in compensatory stimulations. These actions may help us focus, mask large emotions, or they may be simple habits we perform automatically. Nevertheless, these actions are completely normal. They become diagnosable once they interfere with our ability to perform necessary functions.      For many people diagnosed with a hyperactivity disorder, fidgeting may be caused by an underlying sensory disorder. Individuals with these diagnoses are faced with large emotions and a wide-variety of stimulations on a daily basis. As a spectator, one may view these behaviors as "acting out." In a podcast titled "Can Occupational Therapy Help With ADHD," Stephanie Lancaster compared dealing with stressors to an active car engine. If the engine receives too ...

      As Occupational Therapists, our goal is to help people participate in the activities that are meaningful to them. The beauty of this is the activities that are meaningful to me, may not be important to someone else. There are many factors that determine which activities are important to someone, and culture is one of the most influential.      Culture includes the values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms of a group of people (Hammell, 2013). We often associate culture with groups regarding race and religion, but they expand far beyond these assumptions. For example, people within the same sports team share a culture. Schools, businesses, and other social groups are all examples of different cultures, and people typically belong to more than one.       In order to determine one's culture, you must first determine their roles. According to the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework, roles "define who a person, group, or population beli...

     Our previous class session focused on the history of treating disabilities in America. This was a very sensitive and emotional topic of conversation. We began the class session by watching the 1968 documentary " Suffer the Little Children ." This eye-opening film showed direct footage from the Pennhurst institution.       Pennhurst was a facility for people of all ages with all kinds of impairments– physical and mental. This specific institution operated before any regulations were enforced to keep this part of the population safe. Rooms were overcrowded and unclean, and the staff was not trained to provide adequate care. As a result, thousands of people suffered from social neglect and various forms of abuse. Throughout the 1960's and previous decades, people with disabilities were viewed as taboo and a nuisance to society. Once placed in an institution, this population was shut off from their families and the rest of the public. As a result, the...

      Each year, a member of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) is chosen to receive the "Eleanor Clark-Slagle" award for their unique contributions to occupational therapy through research, education, and practice. I chose to review the findings of the 2018 award recipient— Gordon Muir Giles.      2018 was a year centered around the highs and lows of leadership around the globe. Donald Trump completed his second year of presidency, and controversy over immigration spiked. Leaders of North and South Korea declared peace after decades of hostility, and Meghan Markle became part of the royal family. In addition to these noteworthy events, psychological research was booming. As we learn more and more about our brain, we learn how to use our mental process toward our advantage. Gordon Muir Giles did just that as he applied research on cognitive processes to those with mental impairments.      Gordon Muir Giles is a professor at ...

Hello!     My name is Allison Hyatt, but on this blog, I'll be known as your pen pal Al. I am a first-year student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and a member of the occupational therapy program. I recently finished my Bachelor of Science at Harding University where I studied Exercise Science and Psychology. I was born and raised a Memphian, and I look forward to completing my master's in my hometown.      As cliche as it may sound, I've dreamed of going to OT school for quite some time. During my senior year of high school, a couple of occupational therapy students from UTHSC came and spoke to my anatomy class. They described the joys of the profession and the steps they took to get to graduate school. Their presentation must've been quite convincing because from that moment on, I knew exactly what I wanted my future to look like. I began preparing right away, and I couldn't understand why some of my friends were majoring in "undecided....