Students with College of Western Idaho's (CWI) Occupational Therapy Assistant (OTA) program got Boise students in the Halloween spirit with a Pumpkin Walk activity Friday, Oct. 28.
OTA students spent a few hours each week throughout the semester at the Madison Early Learning Center in Boise School District (BSD). The students work with a BSD occupational therapist to implement and develop school-based occupational therapy services for children aged three to five years old, many of whom are on the autism spectrum. This work is part of OTA program’s Level I Pediatric Fieldwork experience.
Over the last few of weeks, several students with CWI’s OTA program helped the Early Learning Center's occupational therapist develop a new obstacle course for the annual Pumpkin Walk and assist the students through the course during the festivities.
The pumpkin walk had various obstacles the children had to go through like entry ways with ghosts attached, a scarecrow maze, balance beams, pop-up play tunnels, and more. At the end of the course the children were able to pick out their own pumpkin to take home.
OTA students also created materials designed for use by teachers in the classroom as part of pre-teaching activities to better prepare the students for any changes to their daily routines, as well as developing new treatment interventions with instructions that the OT can utilize during daily interventions and activities at the school.
"The CWI OTA program develops fieldwork collaborations within the local community each semester that align with the populations our students are learning about so students can gain real, hands-on experience and better apply the concepts learned in the classroom to the practice of occupational therapy," said OTA program Academic Fieldwork Coordinator and Instructor, Angela Zaugg. "Providing students with this hands-on experience during fieldwork better prepares them for their future clinical rotations as well as helping them determine which populations and settings they might prefer to gain employment in once they graduate.”
For more information on CWI's OTA program, contact Program Director and Instructor, Mel Henderson, at melhenderson@cwi.edu.
