Mays OT, Pediatric Occupational Therapy

03/05/2025

We had a Special Guest ⭐️ at NeuroSpark Therapies today! Pete the Cat stopped by to climb the new rock wall! He was blessed to have an excellent tour guide!

11/27/2024

Jump. Crash. Repeat.

11/27/2024

OT is fun! My guys had a great time building our own duck hunt, nintendo not required. 😉

11/26/2024

04/30/2024

Sometimes a game of I Spy results in a ransom. Thanks for the laugh Kelda Golden! 😂

10/19/2023

The Occuplaytional Therapist is a 🎯 with this! I couldn’t agree more.

In adulthood, I am actively working on increasing my own interoception (sense of my inner body)…on listening to my body and what it needs.

More often than not, I used to ignore my body telling me that it is hungry. Or telling me that it needs to go to the bathroom. Or telling me that it needs to move around and not sit still any longer.

I didn’t usually think of it in those terms. I didn’t usually think to myself, “I’m not allowed to go to the bathroom,” or, “I don’t need to move, I need to sit still.” Instead, I would think things like, “If I could just pay attention for two seconds I could finish writing this report. I can get up and take a break when I’m *done*. I’m not allowed to until I’m done. What is wrong with me? Why am I like this? Ughhhh. Maybe I should bribe myself with a snack. Maybe I should punish myself by turning off my music.”

It took—and still takes—time, and conscious effort, to change those internal messages back to ones of listening to my body. To remind myself, “Maybe if I stand up and stretch, it will help my brain wake back up.” “If I am struggling to focus, then beating myself up about it will not solve whatever underlying problem is here.” “I’m listening, body, what are you saying?”

I wonder how my journey would have been different if I had learned these messages from childhood.

I didn’t even have a drastically terrible childhood or anything. I just learned to ignore my inconvenient body for the sake of sitting still and doing school well. I did school beautifully for a long time. I was one of the kids who could suppress what I needed in order to please adults. There are lots of kids who can’t.

(If you're interested, see the comments for links to further reading.

09/27/2023

Sometimes you just need to destroy some patio cushions to self-regulate. 🐾

09/24/2023

Leaving a text unread until you have the 🥄 ‘s to reply is SELF-CARE.

09/24/2023

Autism is NOT hot sauce. No warnings or labels necessary.

Did you know that the Autistic community rejects attaching qualifiers to Autism?

Functioning labels or levels do not represent an individual Autistic persons lived experience, are demeaning, and can result in a multitude of negative effects for the Autistic person.

Labels and levels cause others to develop preconceived notions of the Autistic persons abilities.

The levels of mild, moderate, and severe are depicted as caregiver burden rather than the actual lived experience of the Autistic person.

Labels like "high functioning" are also rejected as this qualifier appears to indicate that the Autistic person is not in need of support or accommodation and may result in the person's needs, consider sensory needs, being overlooked or disregarded.

Labels like "low functioning" attach a negative connotation to the Autistic person's abilities and leave the person susceptible to limited opportunities and experiences.



[Image description: Title: "Autism is NOT Hot Sauce. Subtitle: warning label icon, text: "Warning Labels or Levels are Not Necessary". Photo description from left to right: hot sauce bottle with label reading "Hot Sauce Mild", hot sauce bottle with label reading "Hot Sauce Moderate", hot sauce bottle with label reading "Hot Sauce Severe". Bottom right corner, "Mays ot" icon.]