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November
5,, 2010
Issue 35, Volume
4
It's All About the
Choices!
Greetings!
Hello and Happy Friday. Can you believe we are about to enter
the holiday season already? So, until your life gets more hectic
than usual, have a seat, pull out a leftover piece of Halloween
candy, and enjoy our newsletter.
News Items:
- Thoughts and Prayers Requested for a Friend of PediaStaff
- PediaStaff Needs 2 Minutes of Your Time
- Obama Administration Urges Schools To Take Action On
Bullying
- Children with ADHD Symptoms at Higher Risk of Obesity
- Adaptive Communication Apps in the New York Times
- Researchers Develop Tool to Identify Bilingual Children with
True Language Disorders
- Stuttering on the Big Screen: The King's Speech
- Autism-risk Gene Rewires The Brain In A Way That Disrupts
Learning And Language Acquisition
- Early Autism Intervention Takes On New Meaning
Tips, Activities
and Resources:
- Test of Selective Attention
- It's a Noisy Planet
Upcoming Events:
Articles and Blogs
-
Guest Blog: Homemade Solutions for Attentional
Difficulties
-
Guest Blog: Tall Ring Stack on a Pole Hippotherapy
Activity
- Guest Blog: Wheelchair User for a Day
- Pediatric Therapy Corner: Therapy Ideas for SLPs who Travel to
Clients' Homes, Daycare Facilities and Schools
-
Worth Repeating: Linking Phonology and Language: Approaches,
Target Selection and Intervention Ideas
- Also Worth Repeating: Infant & Childhood Stroke Fact
Sheet
Feel free to contact us with any questions about our openings
or items in these pages. Have you discovered our RSS feed? Click on
the orange button below to subscribe to all our openings and have
them delivered to your Feed Reader! Don't have an RSS Feed Reader
set up? Sign up at
Feed My Inbox and have any feed you like
delivered to your email inbox!
Have a great weekend and Take Care!
Heidi
Kay and the PediaStaff Team
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The
Career Center
The links to the right are "live" and reflect the most recent jobs
with PediaStaff. To further narrow your search by state use the
drop down menus on the search page to select a specific state. If
a particular search is returning no hits it is possible that we do not currently have new
openings
for you in that state.
To see ALL our
openings click HERE
and select the checkbox for your discipline.
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Hot Hospital Job of the Week |
Hospital
Based Occupational Therapist - Eastern Shore, MD
Our client is a not-for-profit network of inpatient and outpatient
services with facilities in Talbot, Dorchester, Caroline and Queen
Anne's counties. Affiliated with the University of Maryland Medical
System, they are bringing world class medical care to residents of
Maryland's Mid-Shore and the Delmarva Peninsula.
We are searching for an Occupational Therapist to work in a 20-bed
inpatient rehabilitation center that offersacute nursing care,
medical supervision by specially trained physicians, and a
comprehensive program of physical, occupational and speech therapy
for patients recovering from injuries, surgery and illnesses.
Patients typically stay up to two weeks and have at least three to
four hours of combined therapy each day. The caseload is 90% adult,
10% pediatrics. The atmosphere is very collaborative between
therapy disciplines. Each staff member has the support of
management and access to professional development and growth. This
is a full time position with excellent benefits. The schedule is
usually 8 - 4:30 with some weekend coverage. This position offers
excellent pay and benefits.
Why this place? Maryland's Eastern Shore is a wonderful area with
a four season climate and easy access to other locations. It is a
reasonable commute to Annapolis and Cambridge, and to a lesser
extent Baltimore and Washington D.C. Residents and visitors enjoy a
variety of activities - hiking, sailing/boating/swimming in the
Chesapeake Bay, golf, festivals, plays, and so much more. The
hospital is located in a pretty town with tree lined streets and
historic buildings. The downtown area is filled with shops,
boutiques, and restaurants.
Qualifications:Must hold a Bachelor's or Master's Degree in
Occupational Therapy and a current Maryland state license (or
eligible).
Interested in this job? Contact PediaStaff
today!..
...IT'S ALL ABOUT
THE CHOICES!
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Hot School-Based Jobs of the
Week |
School-Based Speech Language
Pathologists - Monterey, CA
Come and Stay in Monterey!!!
It's a great time of year to head to the California coast and we
could really use your help right now. Short and long-term school
assignments to cover shortages or maternity and medical leaves
abound. Most of these assignments are full time and couple with our
great benefits package and clinical support. However, don't rule us
out if you only want 1-2 days a week. We are seeking Experienced
School Speech Language Pathologists working with several different
age groups. If working with kids is your passion and California is
at all on your radar, we would love to hear from you.
Qualifications: MS in Communication Sciences, a current state
license (or eligible) if applicable. CFY with school-based clinical
experience is not out of the question.
The climate is temperate with summer daytime highs from the 70s to
mid 80s. Nighttime coastal fog creeps down the valley from the
Monterey Bay causing cooler evening temperatures in the mid 50s.
Indian summers begin in September and can last through early
December offering a warm and pleasant fall season.
Pediatric therapy is our specialty - and our expertise is backed by
excellent hourly rates and per diem offered based upon IRS
eligibility. Additional benefits include: nationally recognized
medical insurance, 401K, generous relocation and continuing
education assistance, optional paid leave, optional summer pay
program, reimbursement for state licensure and/or teacher
certifications, and completion bonuses.
Respond now and learn how YOU can be a part of our team! There is
never a charge to applicants and new graduates are always
encouraged to apply.
Interested in this job? Contact PediaStaff
today!..
...IT'S ALL ABOUT
THE CHOICES!
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Your Thoughts and Prayers
Needed: PediaStaff
Contributor Alejandro Brice Hospitalized
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Please keep a friend of
PediaStaff in your thoughts and prayers! Alejandro Brice, one of
our regular columnists for our monthly Bilingual Corner is in the
hospital recovering from a very serious vertebral artery aneurysm
rupture. He is expected to make a full recovery, but let's all
send good thoughts and prayers. He has recently come out of the
ICU after a two week stay.
Please feel free to visit Alex's CaringBridge site and post on his
guestbook.. How cool would it be if many of our PediaStaff family
let him know how much he means to the SLP community!! Let's do it
in English AND Spanish!!
Visit Alejandro Brice's Caring
Bridge Guestbook
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PediaStaff Needs You
Please: 30
Seconds of Your Time for Your Two Cents
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I hear regularly via email
and through our staff how much our readers enjoy our newsletter
every week. It is quite gratifying to know that it is becoming so
well respected as a 'go-to' publication for pediatric therapists.
I do need to say we are pretty proud of what it has evolved over
the past couple of years, and we hope to continue to make
improvements.
That said, we would like to ask for your help that we can tell the
rest of the therapy community about all the great content we put
together weekly.
So, If you like our newsletter, please click on the link below and
comment on our special blog testimonial page about what what like
best about our blog, newsletter and or resources, and why you think
its valuable for everyone - not just job seekers.
Please Share Your
Comments at the Bottom of our Five Reasons to Read the PediaStaff
BLog post HERE
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Bullying in the News: Obama
Administration Urges Schools To Take Action On Bullying
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[Source: Disability
Scoop]
Bullying on the basis of disability and a slew of other factors is
not only wrong, federal officials are reminding educators, but in
many cases it's also against the law.
In a letter to schools, colleges and universities sent Tuesday,
Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights at the
Department of Education, outlined the legal obligations that school
staff have to protect students from peer harassment based on race,
color, national origin, sex or disability.
"Harassing conduct may take many forms, including verbal acts and
name?calling; graphic and written statements, which may include use
of cell phones or the Internet; or other conduct that may be
physically threatening, harmful or humiliating," Ali wrote. "A
school is responsible for addressing harassment incidents about
which it knows or reasonably should have known."
Read the Rest of this
Article Through our Blog
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ADHD in the News: Children with
ADHD Symptoms at Higher Risk of Obesity
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[Source: HealthDay
News/UPI]
Children with
symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at
increased risk for obesity in adulthood, a new study claims.
Having three or
more of any of the symptoms of ADHD - such as inattention,
hyperactivity or impulsivity - significantly increases the chances
of being obese, according to researchers from Duke University
Medical Center, who examined federal data on 15,197 adolescents
followed from 1995 to 2009.
Read the Rest of this Article
Through a Link on our Blog
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Adaptive and
Alternative Communication in the News: iPad Apps for
Communication in the New York Times
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[Source: The New
York Times]
Owen Cain depends
on a respirator and struggles to make even the slightest movements
- he has had a debilitating motor-neuron disease since infancy.
Owen, 7, does not have the strength to maneuver a computer mouse,
but when a nurse propped her boyfriend's iPad within reach in June,
he did something his mother had never seen before.
He aimed his left
pointer finger at an icon on the screen, touched it - just barely -
and opened the application Gravitarium, which plays music as users
create landscapes of stars on the screen. Over the years, Owen's
parents had tried several computerized communications contraptions
to give him an escape from his disability, but the iPad was the
first that worked on the first try.
Read the Rest of This
Article Through a Link on our Blog
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Language Disorders in Bilingual Children
in the News: Researchers
Develop Tool to Identify Bilingual Children with True Language
Disorders
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[Source: University of Texas]
According to the 2000 census, nearly one-third of Texans ages 5
years and older speak Spanish at home. Add the under-5 population
and the percentage is even higher. Due to continued immigration and
globalism, the bilingual population will continue to grow in
Texas.
Five to 8 percent of preschoolers experience a speech-language
disorder, one of the most common childhood disabilities, but also
one of the most treatable when identified early. Speech disorders
include difficulty pronouncing sounds, articulation problems and
stuttering, while language disorders involve difficulty expressing
ideas and understanding what is heard. Because language is the
foundation of communication, untreated speech-language disorders
can lead to struggles with reading, school absenteeism, behavioral
issues and academic failure.
Read the Rest of This
ArticleThrough a Link on our Blog |
Stuttering in the News and on the Big
Screen: The
King's Speech |
by: The Stuttering Foundation
In November 2010, worldwide movie audiences will be
presented with a most interesting and unusual movie release with
The King's Speech, starring Colin Firth as King George VI and
Helena Bonham Carter as his wife Elizabeth.
Unfortunately, history may have forgotten the courageous and
inspiring story of Prince Albert who stuttered badly and never
dreamed that he would ever be king when his older brother, King
Edward VIII, abruptly abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis
Simpson, an American divorcee.
In an interview after the completion of the filming of The King's
Speech, producer Iain Canning said, "His brother was famously
charming and Bertie was considered the dull-witted one with little
charisma." When Prince Albert, who was known as Bertie, ascended to
the throne to become King George VI, it is an understatement to say
that his life changed drastically.
Read the Rest of This Article
Through a Link on our Blog |
Autism in the News: Autism-Risk
Gene Rewires The Brain In A Way That Disrupts Learning And Language
Acquisition |
[Source: Medical News Today.com]
Researchers at UCLA have discovered how an autism-risk gene rewires
the brain, which could pave the way for treatments aimed at
rebalancing brain circuits during early development, according to
an article published in Science Translational Medicine. Functional
imaging scans have revealed that some of the problems experienced
by individuals with autism may be due to too many connections
within the frontal lobe of the brain, and poor connections between
the frontal lobe and other parts of the brain. The researchers say
their discovery, what they described as the result of "a blend of
brain imaging and genetic detective work", located the crucial
missing mechanisms linking altered genes to changes in brain
functions and disrupted learning.
Read the Rest of This Article and
an NBC Article Through a Link on our Blog |
Autism in the News: Early
Autism Intervention Takes On New Meaning |
[Source: DisabilityScoop.com]
Doctors can't formally diagnose autism in children younger than age
2, but that's not stopping researchers who are working to identify
infants who are at risk and begin therapy.
The idea is to take early intervention and apply it at ever-younger
ages. Researchers at the MIND Institute at the University of
California, Davis are enrolling children as young as 6 months who
are exhibiting signs of autism - such as lack of eye contact or
failing to smile or babble - in a pilot project called Infant
Start.
Participating parents learn to help their babies develop critical
skills. For example, parents might be taught to engage their
children in such a way that the babies gaze at mom or dad rather
than a toy or the ceiling.
Read the Rest of This Article and
a New York Times Article Through a Link on our Blog |
Therapist/Family
Resource of the Week: It's a Noisy
Planet
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Many of you already get the
Inside NIDCD Newsletter which is the quarterly publication of the
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders,
but did you know about their wonderful website for kids and parents
called Noisy Planet?
In October 2008, the National Institute on Deafness and Other
Communication Disorders (NIDCD), part of the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), launched It's a Noisy Planet. Protect Their Hearing.
The Noisy Planet campaign is designed to increase awareness among
parents of children ages 8 to 12 ("tweens") about the causes and
prevention of NIHL. With this information, parents and other caring
adults can encourage children to adopt healthy habits that will
help them protect their hearing for life.
Visit 'It's a Noisy
Planet Through a Link on our Website
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Fun Activity to
Try and Book Recommendation: Test
of Selective Attention and the "Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways
our Intuitions Deceive Us"
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Editor's Note: This is a
great activity that demonstrates the "illusion of attention. " It
wasn't designed to be used with kids but it is really terrific. I
would say for 3rd graders and up. According to the authors of this
experiment, about 50% of the people who take this 'test' answer NO
to the question posed at the end. Apparently, there is little
correlation with IQ either. I wonder if our ADD/Gifted/Special
kiddos who have hyperfocus issues would do compared to general
population?
Interestingly enough, the book that features this experiment ("The
Invisible Gorilla") speaks of several other "illusions" including
the 'illusion of cause.' In that chapter he uses the
vaccine/autism "connection" to demonstrate that a small number of
emotionally charged anecdotes will sway people towards a belief in
a causal connection between things despite scientific evidence to
the contrary. An entire chapter of the book is devoted to this
issue and mentions Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield. If you
have an interest in cognitive psychology, check out the book!
How might one use this test with gifted/special kids? Post your
suggestions below in our comments area.
Check out this Test of Selective
Attention on our Blog
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Upcoming
Event: ASHA National
Convention - November 18-20, 2010, Philadelphia,
PA
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- Stop by our Booth and Meet the
PediaStaff Team in Person;
- Let us Know you Follow our
Newsletter;
- and Pick up Your Free Toobaloo!
Learn
More about the 2010 ASHA Convention
Learn About CEU Opportunities in
Philadelphia
We will have booth both in the main exhibit hall and in the Career
Center. You can find us in the main hall at Booth 232 and in the
Career Fair at Booths 2310/2312
Our Career Center specialists are scheduling interviews now. Come
talk to us about all your options in school based and pediatric
speech language pathology. PediaStaff has a wide variety of
options for for experienced SLPs as well as young therapists just
starting out!
Please contact Sue Steger in our office at sue@pediastaff.com or call 866-733-4278 to
secure your slot!
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Guest Blogs This Week:
PediatricOT, HorseOT, The
Daily Dose
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Homemade Solutions for Attentional
Difficulties - By: Loren Shlaes, OTR/L
You can go a long way
towards improving a child's ability to cope by eliminating toxins
from his environment, making sure he eats nutritious food, and gets
plenty of sleep and exercise.
- Suggest to parents that they take the child to the playground
for a quick workout before school starts and make sure that he gets
daily vigorous exercise. If a child is not getting outside to play
every single day, this could account for at least part of the
problem if he is having a hard time sitting still.
Children need to move, to work on coordinating their minds and
bodies, to use their hands, and to solve problems. Sitting
passively in front of a television or video game is not an
appropriate way for the child to spend more than an hour or two, at
the very most. If a child is inside due to weather problems,
suggest to parents that they have other options available besides
the TV or computer. Good ideas include board games or cards,
cooking together, wrestling, dancing to music, making a craft
project, or building a fort or obstacle course out of sofa
cushions. Have the parents turn off all electronic devices like
Blackberries or cell phones during "together times" so that they
can give their children their full attention.
Read the Rest of this Guest Post
on our Blog
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We
welcome Barbara Smith, OTR to our Guest Blog pages. Barbara has
two blogs. This week, we welcome her with an entry from her Horse
OT blog
Tall Ring Stack on Pole - By: Barbara Smith, OTR/L
My son recently made this tall ring stack for me using pcv
pipe and concrete in the coffee can. Its the perfect height for
children to post in order to reach and place the rings. The "rings"
are made of kids tights stuffed with plastic bags and they are
great for those kids who resist using both hands together and need
to work on motor planning.
Read the Rest of this
Guest Post on our Blog
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Wheelchair
User for a Day- By: Janelle LoBello
I love ideas like this. We've all heard the phrase, "Try living a
day in my shoes." I came across this blog of a student who had to
do just that and navigate her campus in a wheelchair.
Everyone in my class has an assignment: spend one day that we
are on campus in a wheelchair. Most days we are only in two
buildings that are practically next to one another, so it hasn't
been a big deal. Today I had to go to another part of campus to
hear a presentation (from a motivational speaker who speaks about
being in a wheelchair) and it was challenging. On my way over a
classmate offered to push me and I was so grateful because the
sidewalk was so uneven and sloped in all different directions.
Walking on it I would never have noticed, but being in a wheelchair
I felt everything.
Check out the Rest of
this Great Guest Blog Activity on our Blog
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Pediatric Therapy Corner: -
Therapy Ideas for SLPs who Travel to Clients' Homes, Daycare
Facilities and School
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by: Gina Cato, MA. CCC-SLP, the Center for
Hearing & Speech
The traveling SLP has many challenges when providing
therapy outside of her office. How many therapy materials can
possibly fit in a therapy bag? At the Center for Hearing &
Speech, each SLP travels to several off-site locations. These are
some therapy activities that we've used when we travel to area
daycares and schools. The activities are functional for the child,
yet require only a few supplies that typically can be found in
classrooms.
- Work on following auditory directions in the child's classroom.
For example, practice following classroom routines such as, "Turn
in your paper and line up for lunch." Practice placing items in
various locations when the client hears directions, such as, "Put
the truck on the shelf," or "Put the puzzle on the table."
- Use photos of the client's school environment to teach
vocabulary and practice articulation goals. For example, use photos
of the school fish, the classroom shelf, and a toy elephant to
practice the /f/ sound and improve receptive / expressive classroom
vocabulary. For children who need alternative / augmentative
communication, place photos on a small, metal ring or in a photo
album.
Read the Rest of This
Article on our Blog
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Worth Repeating - Linking
Phonology and Language: Approaches, Target Selection and
Intervention Ideas
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[Source: CSHA.org]
By: Jackie Bauman-Waengler, Ph.D., Pleasant Valley School
District, Camarillo, CA
Diane Garcia, M.S., University of Redlands, Redlands,
CA
Presentation covers different approaches and therapies for
different Phonological and Language Problems
Read the Rest of This Article
Through a Link on our Blog
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Also Worth Repeating - Infant
& Childhood Stroke Fact Sheet |
[Source:
CHASA]
Children's Hemiplegia and Stroke Association, a 501�(3)
non-profit organization, to help provide research awards to
scientists who engage in infant or childhood stroke
research.
What is a Stroke?
A stroke occurs when the blood supply to any part of the brain is
interrupted, resulting in tissue injury and loss of brain
function.
How often does childhood stroke occur?
- A number of
strokes occur prior to birth, but it is unclear how often this
happens
- Stroke occurs at a
higher rate in infants who are less than 1 year old; around 1 in
4000 live births
- For children 1-18
years old, stroke occurs in 6 out of 100,000 children5 - 10% of
children will die from their stroke
Read the Rest of this
Article Through a Link on our Blog
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Please Note: The views and
advice expressed in articles, videos and other pieces published in
this newsletter are not necessarily the views and advice of
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PediaStaff is not endorsing or implying agreement with the views or
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independent analysis and information of its readers.
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