In today’s world, we’ve (finally) begun to have in-depth conversations about the realities of police brutality and racism. We’ve become flooded with information, from history lessons we never knew to personal stories in real-time. You can’t scroll down a social media feed without coming across them. As I was doing what is now my quarantine…
Tag: autism
Person-First or Identity-First?
One of the very first things we learned when I was in my first semester of OTA school was to use “person-first” language rather than “identity-first” when referring to our patients. We were told that to use “identity-first” (identifying a person by their disability first, as in “an autistic person”) was insensitive and demeaning to…
The Pros and Cons of Reward Charts
Throughout my career both as a Behavior Interventionist, and as an OT Assistant, I’ve seen a wide variety of uses for reward charts. I’ve used them mostly in schools, but often in homes as well, and for so many different reasons, I’ve lost count. Everything from completing homework assignments or doing chores around the house,…