Summary: Stephanie Capshaw, OTD, OTR/L, presents on this essential topic for educators. For children who have difficulty processing everyday sensations, the school day can be a very challenging time. The ability to have adequate arousal throughout the school day, maintain focus and attention, develop healthy peer social relationships, and acquire higher level cognitive skills are all dependent on a strong foundation of efficiently processing sensations in the busy world around them. Teachers have an opportunity to support all children in addressing their underlying sensory needs throughout the school day.
Level: Foundational
Intended Audience: Parents, caregivers, home school parents, teachers, and special education providers
Prerequisite: None
Presenter: Dr. Capshaw brings more than 20 years experience in occupational therapy, practicing in numerous pediatric settings, including public schools, outpatient clinics, and home health. She has specialty certifications in Sensory Processing (STAR Institute Intensive Mentorships- Levels 1 and 2), administration of the SIPT, and handwriting (HWT). She spent one year at the STAR Institute in Colorado, a premiere research and clinical site serving children and families with sensory processing challenges, under the mentorship of Dr. Lucy Miller. Before coming to the USAHS, she spent 14 years in academia and higher education administration at the University of Texas at El Paso, where her teaching, research and service centered around health disparities, cultural competence, border health, community engagement, and pediatric occupational therapy. She has given presentations and taught courses across the United States, including the American Occupational Therapy Association and the Texas Occupational Therapy’s annual conferences, the STAR Institutes’s International Symposium, as well as numerous others. Her clinical, service, and research interests include pediatric occupational therapy, sensory processing, health disparities, cultural competence, service learning, international service learning, community engagement and inter-professional education (IPE).
Learning Objectives:
- Define the eight sensory systems
- Describe Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) subtypes, and how it can interfere with academic performance
- Identify classroom strategies for children with different sensory processing challenges
Continuing Education: STAR Institute for Sensory Processing Disorder is an AOTA Approved Provider of Continuing Education. The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA.
Upon full completion of the course video, participants must complete and pass a quiz with at least 80% accuracy to receive a certificate of completion.