Occupational Therapists' Role in Addressing the Issue on Sitting Too Much in the Classroom

Issue

The issue in this new article is an issue that has been a hot topic recently: “Why Kids Shouldn’t Sit Still in Class. This article talked about the need for children to move throughout the day and how evidence is showing that activity breaks during the day help children learn and be more attentive. The article mentioned several references to why movement during the school day is important for children. It mentioned the use of “GoNoodle”, which is a classroom movement program, and how it’s used in several classrooms. However, due to time constraints and the shift into focus on standardized testing, we are not thinking about providing students with “play” during the day. I believe that a policy needs to be put in place for providing movement throughout the school day for children, so they have the potential to learn for effectively and be more attentive in the classroom.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/well/family/why-kids-shouldnt-sit-still-in-class.html?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange_article

Service Delivery

This service needs to be addressed delivered through the educational system in a collaborative effort. This is the quickest way to get to our teachers, who would be responsible for implementing movement breaks throughout the day. However, teachers are too busy to address this as they are already focused on providing effective ways to educate their students. Occupational therapists were surprisingly not mentioned in this article. However, occupational therapists are knowledgeable in child development, sensory processing, task analysis, and environmental modifications. All of these areas are areas that are important to consider when thinking about providing movements breaks throughout a child’s school day for increasing focus and learning potential of children. Occupational therapists need to advocate for their scope of practice and talk to the leaders in their education systems to advocate for movement breaks and provide education of the benefits of these breaks. The teachers would provide the movement breaks, and the occupational therapists’ job would be to provide tier one services to the classrooms and teachers.

Policy

The first policy implemented would be for occupational therapists to educate teachers on how to provide movement throughout the day while incorporating learning objectives for the class. Occupational therapists would also educate teachers on the basics of sensory processing, the occupation of play, and environmental modifications for increasing attention. First, occupational therapists in the school system would need to start to incorporate tier one services into the classroom. Tier one services are not implemented nearly as much as they should be, and this is a great way for occupational therapists to get to the entire classroom and the teacher in the most time effective way. Occupational therapists could educate the teacher to try to incorporate movement and multisensory learning into the different classroom subjects. For example, we could suggest that the teacher completes a relay race of completing math flashcards or toss a beach ball with questions on it for students to answer when it’s passed to them. Even standing at a white board to fix grammatical errors in a paragraph is still providing a chance to move for children. This is a great way to provide movement while still educating students.

While this is a great option, some teachers may not be willing to implement this approach of providing movement while teaching. Another policy could be to simply provide a list of small “brain breaks” every 20 minutes or so depending on the children’s age. Teachers with more traditional approaches may be willing to implement this break that only takes a small amount of time out of their class if they know how much it can assist with the child’s focus.

The final policy occupational therapists could implement would be alternative seating. Occupational therapists would educate the teachers and leader in education about the evidence behind alternative seating such as standing at the desk, beanbag chairs, rocking chairs, or foot fidgets. This would be a great way to provide movement throughout the child’s school day when still allowing the teacher to teach simultaneously.

Data

Data that would be required to implement these policies include:

·      The school’s budget in determination of no-tech vs. high-tech alternative seating

·      Classroom sizes

·      A survey on the perceptions of teachers in changing their classroom structure to provide movement breaks, movement teaching approaches, and alternative seating

·      Typical school schedule including classroom teacher changes throughout the day, class lengths, school schedule, etc.

·      Time when the occupational therapists could provide tier one services to the teacher and the classroom

·      Teacher perceptions of their students' attention in the classroom

·      Data on teacher’s teaching styles and which of these teachers already provide movement breaks

·      Amount of teachers and occupational therapists that would be willing to implement these policies

Implications

The policies mentioned above have a huge amount of implications for occupational therapy, especially in pediatrics and the school system. Implementation of these policies would increase awareness in the educational system on occupational therapy’s scope of practice and roles in pediatrics. Currently, teachers and leaders in the educational system may not know that occupational therapists have this extensive knowledge and can provide effective services in this area. These policies would also increase awareness of how occupational therapy services can be provided at the tier one level of RTI. Occupational therapy services on the tier one level can be so beneficial in not only providing wonderful services to the entire classroom, but also educating teachers in areas such as sensory processing, handwriting, and fine motor skills.

Cruz, D. D. (2017, March 21). Why Kids Shouldn’t Sit Still in Class. Retrieved April 08, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/well/family/why-kids-shouldnt-sit-still-in-class.html?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange_article

Gorski, D. (n.d.). What is RTI? Retrieved April 08, 2017, from http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/what/whatisrti