Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast

87 Episodes

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Ep. 86 Play as an Occupation: The Play-Work Continuum in Pediatric OT

2026-10-0737:23

Send us a Text or Voicemail Pediatric OTs use play in nearly everything we do, but how much of it is actually play? In this episode, we review the play-work continuum, which separates free play from play as a vehicle for goals. Michele also shares 10 ways to apply it in your sessions, from writing goals for play to setting up the environment and how to facilitate safe rough-and-tumble play. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too. &n...

Ep. 85 Sensory Garments and Participation for Autistic Children

2026-09-3032:29

Send us a Text or Voicemail Sensory garments are everywhere and frequently marketed to our clients and families — but almost none of the research asks what happens after a parent clicks "buy." This episode discusses a study with off-the-shelf sensory garments and their impact on participation for autistic children. The results split in a way that may change how you talk to families about these products — and expose a bigger problem with how we measure outcomes for autistic kids in the first p...

Ep. 84 CO-OP for Kids with DCD and ADHD

2026-09-2339:37

Send us a Text or Voicemail Up to 50% of kids with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) also have ADHD — and that overlap changes how motor gains actually stick. We're back with another episode on CO-OP: goal, plan, do, check, and 8 strategies for building motor skills through problem-solving instead of repetition. If you've been using a repetition-based, motor-learning approach with a child and haven’t seen much success, this episode has an alternative worth trying. And....if you missed...

Ep. 83 Building Spoon-Feeding Skills

2026-09-1632:26

Send us a Text or Voicemail “You gain what you train” — but what does that actually look like session to session? In this episode, Michele and Lacy review a case study that has all the ingredients of a solid motor learning intervention for self-feeding with a spoon. We talk through how the intervention was built, what actually improved (and what didn't), and where the study's limitations leave room to make this more practical — think play, caregiver coaching, adaptive tools. We share ou...

Ep. 82 Teaching Daily Living Skills to Autistic Teens

2026-09-0945:03

Send us a Text or Voicemail Daily living skill performance can be hard to learn for autistic teens, even when their cognition is average or above average. This episode covers a randomized controlled trial testing a manualized program that teaches laundry, cooking, and money management to autistic adolescents, compared head-to-head with the well-respected PEERS program. We cover the results and how an OT lens could take this already-strong intervention even further. We share our own thou...

#box-pro-ellipsis-179187623218427{-webkit-line-clamp:2;}Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast