Physical, Occupational And Communication Disorders Case Study

What are common practices of treatment for physical, occupational, and speech therapists when treating torticollis, communication disorders, and autism?

Summary

Physical, occupational, and speech child therapists often work with children who have torticollis, communication disorders, or a neurological disorder such as autism. These three professions exist at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s therapy clinic. Therefore, relevant knowledge of common practices of physical, occupational, and speech therapy and how they treat torticollis, communication disorders, and autism is necessary to understand an internship at the CHOA therapy clinic. In a very condensed answer, all therapists use stages to identify where the patient stands versus where they

Physical therapists commonly treat torticollis (Strenk et al., 2017). Speech therapists mainly treat communication disorders, which can include autism (Haj-Tas & Alaraifi, 2015). Occupational therapists sometimes will have patients with neurological disorders such as autism (Polenick & Flora 2012). With torticollis patients, physical therapists use very clear stages to gauge how their patients are progressing (Strenk et al., 2017). When treating autistic patients, many occupational therapists believe in the sensory integration (SI) theory (Polenick & Flora 2012). SI theory believes that the processing and integration of sensory information affects psychological attributes such as behavior, so many autistic children may have symptoms stemming from a sensory integration disorder. By analyzing the methods and results of multiple papers referring to common practices of therapists and other practices when treating a common issue such as torticollis for physical therapists, communication disorders for speech therapists, and autism for both speech and occupational therapists, the articles can help establish common practices of physical, speech, and occupational

In children, physical therapists will often treat torticollis, which is when the muscles of the neck are out of their normal position, causing the head to tilt to one side (Strenk et al., 2017). In general, physical therapists may often use intricate movements of their own body to treat a patient (Covington & Barcinas, 2017). Also, according to Covington and Barcinas (2017), the way that physical therapists teach physical therapy students may differ between learning from an in-patient physical therapist, which in the study preferred a student to copy what they do, and an out-patient physical therapist, which preferred the student to learn independently in the study (Covington & Barcinas, 2017). Because of the need for intricate movements from the physical therapist and different teaching techniques, there is a possibility that different therapists may use different