{"id":32300,"date":"2021-02-25T11:59:39","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T11:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potentialplusuk.org\/?p=32300"},"modified":"2024-08-15T17:34:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T16:34:52","slug":"one-occupational-therapists-journey-into-dual-or-multiple-exceptionality-by-mariza-ferreira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potentialplusuk.org\/index.php\/2021\/02\/25\/one-occupational-therapists-journey-into-dual-or-multiple-exceptionality-by-mariza-ferreira\/","title":{"rendered":"One Occupational Therapist\u2019s Journey into Dual or Multiple Exceptionality by Mariza Ferreira"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”32303″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_rounded” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_empty_space height=”20″][vc_column_text]One Occupational Therapist\u2019s Journey into Discovering How Her Profession is the Vital Link for Helping Children With Dual Or Multiple Exceptionality by Mariza Ferreira, Specialist Paediatric Occupational Therapist<\/strong><\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1614253357653{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_separator color=”black” border_width=”2″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]Not all children who are considered to have High Learning Potential (HLP) will reach their full potential and go on to do what they love and are good at.\u00a0 As a parent of a HLP child you may already know (and perhaps fear?) this.\u00a0 Six years ago, I did not.\u00a0 And I am a specialist paediatric Occupational Therapist who helps children reach their potential on a daily basis\u2026 However, in 2015 and by chance, I started on a remarkable professional journey into discovering what HLP is, and how Occupational Therapists are some of the best suited professionals to help HLP children who also have special educational needs that are holding them back. Of course, this is my personal opinion, but I stand by it.\u00a0 Professionally, it has become my mission to help these children and their parents, and also educate other paediatric Occupational Therapists on the vital role we have to play and how to change our therapy provision to be effective.<\/p>\n

But before I go further, let me introduce myself and explain a little more about what I do.\u00a0 My name is Mariza Ferreira.\u00a0 I am originally from South Africa where I qualified as an Occupational Therapist in 2000, but England has been my home for the last 20 years.<\/p>\n

Not many people understand what an Occupational Therapist is or does.\u00a0 The best way to describe it is to start by saying it is like being a doctor.\u00a0 You qualify with lots of \u2018baseline skills\u2019, but then move on to specialising in a particular field such as orthopaedics or spinal injuries.\u00a0 I have specialised in working with children.\u00a0 The main goal of a paediatric Occupational Therapist is to help children overcome the barriers they face in doing the tasks they need to do or want to do and thereby become as independent and efficient as possible in carrying out those tasks.\u00a0 <\/strong>These \u2018<\/u>tasks\u2019<\/em> can vary widely from everyday activities such as writing legibly, being able to concentrate in class or dressing themselves independently, to those of particular interest such as having the basic skills to play football with their friends.\u00a0 The \u2018barriers\u2019<\/em> can be a combination of sensory- and physical difficulties, as well as social and emotional difficulties.\u00a0 Examples include not being able to cope with noise, light and touch, hyperactivity, an intense need for movement, poor fine and gross motor coordination; difficulty relating socially to other children their age, and extreme emotional reactions if things do not go the way that they perceive it should.\u00a0 As a therapist I am trained to consider all these barriers, and I then work with the children and their families to address these difficulties head on.\u00a0 Over the years I have also trained parents, teachers, and other professionals including some of my fellow Occupational Therapists.<\/p>\n

You may have noticed that I use the term High Learning Potential instead of \u2018gifted\u2019.\u00a0 Well, I am following the lead of Potential Plus UK who started using this term in 2009.\u00a0 In addition to this, instead of referring to HLP children with special educational needs and\/or physical disabilities as \u2018neurodiverse\u2019, we prefer saying they have Dual or Multiple Exceptionality or DME <\/strong>(in some countries they use \u2018Twice Exceptional\u2019 or 2E<\/strong>).\u00a0 These terms may be controversial, but the aim is to try and better identify and help these children and not to get stuck in endless arguments as to how best describe them, which is why I like the terms and have adopted them in my therapy practice.<\/p>\n

So back to my own journey into helping HLP children.\u00a0 In 2015 I moved to Milton Keynes, which as you may be aware is also the base of Potential Plus UK.\u00a0 They asked me to provide training at their Big Family Weekend in 2016 to parents on the topic of how to help children if they have sensory processing disorder (SPD).\u00a0 This is when a child does not respond as you would expect to \u2018sensory input\u2019 coming from the environment or from within the body, which then interferes with their ability to engage with their environment and \/ or peers in order to learn, thrive and be happy.\u00a0 For example, a child may have such an adverse reaction to normal noise in the environment, that he will refuse to get on a train in order to visit the Science museum even though Science may be his most favourite subject.<\/p>\n

At the time of agreeing to provide the training for Potential Plus UK, I had been treating children from various backgrounds and intellectual abilities with SPD for years, so I was comfortable providing my standard course on the topic and I received excellent feedback afterwards.\u00a0 However, parents of HLP children then started employing me to work with their children on a 1:1 basis, and this is when I realised HLP children had very unique profiles and needs which were not always met by my standard occupational therapy treatment approaches.\u00a0 For instance, a typical therapy technique would be to repeat concepts learnt in previous sessions. The first time I tried this with a HLP six year old, he started breaking the equipment in my therapy room and questioned why we were repeating stuff he already understood.<\/p>\n

I had to learn quickly.\u00a0 I started educating myself on the topic of HLP and DME (which seems to be an ongoing endeavour!).\u00a0 I learnt that an estimated \u2153 of HLP children have SPD.\u00a0 From my own observations I concluded that the most common forms of SPD they experienced were overreacting to everyday sensory input from the environment such as noise or bright light (auditory and visual sensory over responsiveness), or displaying an increased and intense need for physical movement as opposed to their peers (vestibular sensory seeking behaviour).\u00a0 They also often had poor gross and fine motor coordination skills, making it difficult for them to participate in sport or PE activities in school, or write legibly and fast enough to keep up with their thoughts and ideas (motor dyspraxia).\u00a0 But interestingly, the main barriers most of them wanted to work on, was those posed by their SPD.<\/p>\n

I started designing a programme for my own practice which evolved to contain the following core elements:<\/p>\n

FOUNDATION:<\/strong> The correct therapist approach or relationship with the child, taking into account the specific profiles and personality traits often associated with HLP children, such as perfectionism.\u00a0 I identified 10 foundations \/ factors that are necessary for successful therapy.<\/p>\n

FRAMEWORK:<\/strong> The core concepts necessary to treat HLP \/ DME children with sensory processing and self-regulation difficulties, which are:<\/p>\n