Building your ATypical Toolbox

A new school year arrives, you have a new caseload, new sites, new staff, and a few of your favorite students and colleagues you get to work with again. Maybe it’s your first year working with students since you were hired during school closures or this is your first school based job ever (if so, welcome to the field!). Perhaps you’ve been in the schools for over a decade and the transition back from distance learning is having you feel like a new therapist again.

Either way, now that most students are back in person, we get to do what we love most: use our skills, knowledge, and experience to support our students participate in their education.

We can figure out the most appropriate assessments, create the best bag or rolling cart of gross motor activities, or take more CEUs to implement the latest interventions.

What about the components that don’t fit in a bag or aren’t material items? The parts that are just as, if not sometimes more important than, our intervention. I’m talking about building relationships with our students and staff to create trust, a safe physical and psychological environment, and promoting knowledge translation for all members of an IEP team.

We sometimes get so wrapped up in goals, progress, and meeting expectations that we forget the human side of treatment that is vital to the success of our students. Here are some tools to be sure to add to your ATypical Toolbox when providing related services in schools.

  • Building Rapport

  • Communication

  • Education

  • Leadership

  • Compassion

  • Empathy

  • Collaboration

In the midst of meeting productivity, filling our calendar with treatment sessions, assessments, IEP/staff meetings, and keeping up with the latest evidence, we sometimes lose sight of the human connection component. Continue to check in with yourself, your values, and your internal compass to be sure you’re heading in the direction you want to go. Spending time listening to a student or staff member about how the school year is going is part of an effective intervention.

Rachel Okazaki