Mentoring in the Art of Therapy: Navigating the path to independence: Decisions about when to discontinue intervention

A conversation with Stacey Szklut OT, MSOT, OTR

Moderated by Robyn Carreras, MS, OTR/L

Recorded Jan, 2024

LiveTalks are hour long discussions between an expert speaker and SPIRAL moderator.

SPIRAL Members: This LiveTalk is lesson 8 in the 2023 LiveTalk Series: Mentoring in the Art of Therapy course, available in your account.

Description:Join us for the final LiveTalk in our “Mentoring in the Art of Therapy” series, where we’ll delve into the complexities of deciding when it’s the right time to conclude therapeutic interventions. Making choices about stopping therapy involves a thoughtful and skillful approach. We’ll navigate through the factors that influence this decision, with a focus on understanding sensory integrative dysfunction and its impact on daily functioning. This session will explore the importance of determining therapy benefits, setting realistic goals, and transferring acquired skills from clinic to daily life. We’ll cover intervention duration, plateau periods, and strategies for clients and caregivers. Additionally, we’ll emphasize the importance of setting clear expectations, explore the role of ongoing consultation after discharge, and discuss strategies for optimizing the journey to independence.

Learning objectives: By the end of this LiveTalk participants will be able to:

1. Identify key factors influencing therapy conclusion, emphasizing sensory integrative dysfunction’s impact on daily functioning.
2. Describe the ongoing consultation process and articulate its significance in maintaining effective therapeutic support.
3. List effective strategies to support both clients and their families during the transition toward independence.

By the end of this series participants will be able to:

1. Describe what it means to be child-led.
2. Identify ways to establish safety and trust with clients using a sensory integration-based framework.
3. Define the ‘just-right’ challenge
4. Identify when a therapeutic activity requires modification.

Course Level: Introductory. There are no prerequisites for this course.

Suitable For: OT/OTA, PT/PTA, SLP, Educators, Psychologists, Parents

AOTA Areas: Occupational Therapy Service Delivery: Evaluation, Intervention and Outcomes. Foundational Knowledge: Human Body, Development, and Behavior.

Contact Hours: This conversations is worth 1 contact hour or 0.1 AOTA CEUs.  To earn contact hours or AOTA CEUs for each Live Talk, participants must attend or view the online session in its entirety (accessible via a Zoom link), and successfully complete the accompanying quiz.

About the Speaker: Stacey Szklut OT, MSOT, OTR Stacey is the owner and Clinical Director of South Shore Therapies, Inc (SST). She oversees the clinical direction and mentoring of the Occupational and Speech Therapy departments. Stacey has a wide range of clinical expertise but has a special passion for working with children that have anxiety and trauma experiences. She deeply believes that change can best be encouraged within a safe and nurturing relationship and environment. This played strongly into the development of SST’s mission and state of the art facilities. In addition to her work in the clinic, Stacey has travelled nationally to teach a variety of workshops on sensory processing, autism spectrum disorder, and feeding intervention, as well as providing consultations to schools. Stacey has written numerous articles and book chapters on assessment and intervention for infants and children with sensory processing disorders, developmental delays, learning disabilities, and autism spectrum disorder, as well as chapters on clinical reasoning and consultation techniques. One of her career highlights was to be recognized as the pediatric sensory integration specialist and premier pediatric clinic in Gary Kielhofner’s book Conceptual Frameworks in OT. 

Disclosure: No disclosures.

ADA/Section 504: If you require special accommodations, please contact the SPIRAL Foundation at admin@thespiralfoundation.org or (617) 969-4410 ext. 282.

Continuing Education:

Occupational Therapy Practitioners/ Occupational Therapy Assistants: SPIRAL Foundation is an Approved Provider of Continuing Education for occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants by the American Occupational Therapy Association. The assignment of AOTA CEUs does not imply endorsement of specific course content, products, or clinical procedures by AOTA.