After two decades of working as a school-based occupational therapist, I followed my passion for teaching handwriting and returned to school and eventually to start publishing. I decided to go to graduate school so that I could investigate existing research regarding handwriting, conduct my own action research, and most importantly, use research-based best practices to polish the classroom curriculum that I have been developing over the past 12 years.
Working with children is my first love. A close second is building systems and curricula that support the development of both special education and typically developing students.
My mission is to provide fun and engaging methods for children to learn essential fine-motor and self-regulation skills needed for lifelong success. I build multi-sensory products for differentiated instruction so that teachers, parents, and therapists are able to provide research-based services to children of all abilities.
Welcome to my OT room!
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My Tools
Handwriting
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Through the support of my district’s administration and grant funding, we were able to obtain these rainbow carts for every district kindergarten and first grade classroom. These carts give teachers easy access to multisensory materials to better enable them to implement Print Path’s handwriting instruction. |
Visual Supports
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 I have found visual supports and visual schedules to be essential for effective treatment sessions with a variety of children. |
Here’s a wall-mounted visual support system that I use at another school. The ring on the left I wear in classrooms when working with kids who need a nonverbal communication tool as feedback to help them regulate and self manage their behaviors. The ring on the right I wear for children who benefit from visual cues for positive behaviors during whole group instruction.
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Self-Regulation Breaks & Skills
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 Self-Regulation Break:
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Thanks for stopping by! ~Thia
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Hi there,
I am looking to purchase some of your materials you created for Self-Regulation Feedback that are modeled after Zones of Regulation. I found a great resource you made online when I did a Google Image search and am interested in being able to have it printed on a larger scale. I can send you an attachment to show you what I mean when I hear back from you. Thank you so much!
Sincerely,
Dottie Irvine
Toronto District School Board (Toronto, ON; Canada)
Hi Dottie,
I hope I can help! You can find all the resources I offer on this topic here: Print Path’s Behavior & Self-Regulation products
You will find the zone colors in large size printables as well as many resources for creating spaces and teaching specific skills here: Self-Regulation Skills Taught
Smaller size resources for individual students can be found here: EDITABLE Visual Schedules for Special Education with Self-Regulation & Classroom Inclusion
That looks like an ideal set up. Our poor OT doesn’t have a room of her own and often ends up in the hall way. I wish the specialist were taken more seriously so they could provide better service. your room is a good example for what can be done.
I love your OT room. The wall of visuals is fantastic.