Are your assessment tools for handwriting helping you determine the true needs of the child? Do your handwriting interventions work?

Apply EBP Experts Series is here to help! Peggy will start the day by discussing a 4-Step Top-down process for assessing handwriting. You will learn the utility of various tools, including which tests are helpful for your decision-making and which ones you should avoid using. In the 2nd seminar, she will discuss a systems approach for developing handwriting skills with the school as the client as the first-choice intervention.

The afternoon is for students who require additional OT intervention beyond a handwriting curriculum. First, Patti will present you with 5 evidence-informed strategies that you can easily incorporate into your current therapeutic session. She will utilize case studies and videos to help you identify barriers to writing legibly, focus on what matters the most and use active learning strategies that empower your client. Finally, Lara will provide you with the 4 Steps to Decision-Making and Implementing AT for written expression. You will learn about considerations for assessing AT needs, instructing the student on AT use, embedding AT into the classroom, and monitoring its successful use.

Leave the course with a deeper understanding of supporting written expression and with various tools and strategies that you can use the next day! See Bonus Tools tab below.

Peggy Morris, OTD, OTR/L, BCP is an OT with 30+ years of peds experience in early intervention, private practice & out-patient, but most of her experience & passion is in school-based practice. She coordinates the post-professional MS and OTD programs & school-based certificate program at Tufts University. She is Board Certified in Pediatrics through the AOTA, and a regular SeekFreaks contributor.

Patti Sharp, OTD, OTR/L, BCP is a certified CO-OP Instructor, and OT at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). She co-leads the Developmental Coordination Disorder Community of Practice at CCHMC. She is an adjunct instructor at the University of Cincinnati. She works with children and youth with DCD, ASD, CP, SCI, TBI, orthopedic and neurologic injuries, and developmental delay.

Lara Collins Barros, OTD, OTR/L has been a school-based OT for over 25 years. She discovered the CO-OP Approach while completing her OTD at NYU and has never looked back. She had the privilege to develop “A Guide for Implementation: Using the Principles of CO-OP to Frame a Top-Down Approach with School-Aged Children” with the mentorship of Dr. Helene Polatajko of ICAN CO-OP.

Disclosures: Peggy, Patti, and Lara receive speaking fees from Apply EBP, LLC. They have no relevant nonfinancial relationships to disclose.

“Great evidence and tools to use to assess OT needs in relation to handwriting. Really made me thing outside of the box!” – OT with 5 years experience on Peggy’s Assessing Handwriting

“Very knowledgeable and very informative with practical ideas that I can use in my practice” – OT with 22 years experience, on Patti’s DCD presentation

To help you apply what you learned the very next day you return to work, you will leave the course with your Practical Toolkit which includes:

• • Handwriting Assessment Tools with Links
  • Resource: Key Strategies for Remediating Handwriting Now
  • Resource: 4 Steps to Decision-making and Implemention of AT for Written Expression