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PODCAST

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast

Michele Alaniz & Lacy Wright

Welcome to Ideas at Play, the go-to podcast for busy pediatric occupational therapy professionals! Whether you"re in school-based settings, early intervention, or outpatient practice, we bring you evidence-based strategies, practical tips, and engaging discussions to support your OT practice with children, teens, and young adults.Each episode features:A deep dive into recent pediatric OT research and how to apply it."Nailed It or Failed It," where we share what’s working—and what isn’t—in our

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All Episodes

32:50

Ep. 85 Sensory Garments and Participation for...

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/09/30

Send us a Text or Voicemail Sensory garments are everywhere and frequently marketed to our clients and families — but almost none of the research asks what happens after a parent clicks "buy." This episode discusses a study with off-the-shelf sensory garments and their impact on participation for autistic children. The results split in a way that may change how you talk to families about these products — and expose a bigger problem with how we measure outcomes for autistic kids in the first p...

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39:58

Ep. 84 CO-OP for Kids with DCD and ADHD

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/09/23

Send us a Text or Voicemail Up to 50% of kids with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) also have ADHD — and that overlap changes how motor gains actually stick. We're back with another episode on CO-OP: goal, plan, do, check, and 8 strategies for building motor skills through problem-solving instead of repetition. If you've been using a repetition-based, motor-learning approach with a child and haven’t seen much success, this episode has an alternative worth trying. And....if you missed...

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32:46

Ep. 83 Building Spoon-Feeding Skills

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/09/16

Send us a Text or Voicemail “You gain what you train” — but what does that actually look like session to session? In this episode, Michele and Lacy review a case study that has all the ingredients of a solid motor learning intervention for self-feeding with a spoon. We talk through how the intervention was built, what actually improved (and what didn't), and where the study's limitations leave room to make this more practical — think play, caregiver coaching, adaptive tools. We share ou...

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45:23

Ep. 82 Teaching Daily Living Skills to Autistic Teens

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/09/09

Send us a Text or Voicemail Daily living skill performance can be hard to learn for autistic teens, even when their cognition is average or above average. This episode covers a randomized controlled trial testing a manualized program that teaches laundry, cooking, and money management to autistic adolescents, compared head-to-head with the well-respected PEERS program. We cover the results and how an OT lens could take this already-strong intervention even further. We share our own thou...

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32:47

Ep. 81 OT Research for Down Syndrome

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/09/02

Send us a Text or Voicemail Down syndrome is one of the most common diagnoses OTs work with, yet the research base behind it is surprisingly small. This week, Lacy and Michele discuss a new AJOT scoping review featuring some of the most unexpected interventions they've ever covered, from elephants to qigong massage to traditional dance. Behind the fun, though, is a bigger story about where this research is happening, and where it's falling short. We share our own thoughts in the Researc...

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46:45

Ep. 80 OT in Aotearoa New Zealand

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/08/26

Send us a Text or Voicemail Picture a beach in Aotearoa New Zealand — a gnarled pōhutukawa tree perfect for climbing, a rope swing hanging over the sand, and a stick sized exactly to a child's height, ready for a game passed down through generations. In this milestone 80th episode, we sit down with, Susi King, a Playmaker from New Zealand to explore how culture, land, and indigenous wellbeing frameworks shape pediatric OT practice on the other side of the world. And, hear about the new burnou...

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33:44

Ep. 79 Executive Function (Working Memory) Strategies...

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/08/19

Send us a Text or Voicemail A 6 year-old can't hold onto multi-step directions long enough to follow them — not because he isn't listening, but because his working memory drops the information before he can act on it. This week, Michele brings a real case to the table and digs into a 2024 study comparing two cognitive strategies — enactment and visualization — to see which one actually helps kids with autism and intellectual disability with working memory. Spoiler: one of them is the clear wi...

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35:19

Ep. 78 Handwriting, ADHD, and Telehealth

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/08/12

Send us a Text or Voicemail Can a therapist facilitate meaningful handwriting improvement through telehealth? A recent randomized controlled trial out of Ankara, Turkey put that question to the test with kids ages six to eight with the inattentive type of ADHD — and the results are not what Lacy and Michele expected. Listen to hear what the researchers actually did over eight weeks of telehealth sessions and why the approach "shouldn't" have worked. Plus: a Nailed It story with an escal...

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38:26

Ep. 77 Outcome Measures for Autistic Preschoolers

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/08/05

Send us a Text or Voicemail Michele found 74 outcome measures to consider for her autistic preschoolers! She and Lacy discuss the top measures from the recent scoping review: which tools show up most in the research, which ones earn a five-star rating for covering the most ground, and where our biggest blind spot as OTs is hiding. Plus, hear about a fun self-care app that may help you as we head into the new school year. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you...

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41:11

Summer of Discovery: Building a Money Management...

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/07/29

Send us a Text or Voicemail Too cartoonish. Too advanced. Too many worksheets — nothing fit, so Lacy built her own money management program from scratch. This week she's breaking down exactly how she did it: from backwards design to key ingredients and changes made along the way, it's a behind-the-scenes look at turning a need into a working program. Plus, a listener question worth its own deep dive on neurodiversity affirming practice. Request the money management program discussed by ...

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39:05

Summer of Discovery: Building & Trialing a Sensory...

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/07/22

Send us a Text or Voicemail “Sensory” is everywhere in pediatric OT, but how do you actually know if and when to try a sensory activity schedule? How do you set one up? When do you know if it is working — or if you're just guessing and hoping? This week, Michele walks through her real system for building a sensory activity schedule from the ground up, from figuring out what a kid actually needs, to adapting it to classrooms or homes, to knowing exactly when to call it a win (or cut your...

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44:02

Summer of Discovery: Building a Fieldwork Program

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/07/15

Send us a Text or Voicemail Ep. 74 Michele and Lacy continue their Summer of Discovery series. This time, Lacy shares what she's learned from supervising more than 50 fieldwork students, from building a program to knowing exactly when to loop in the academic fieldwork coordinator (a lesson she learned the hard way, twice). Lacy walks through how she structures orientation, communication, and supervision to turn nervous students into confident new therapists — and shares the one rule she...

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45:50

Summer of Discovery: Little Spot of Feelings

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/07/08

Send us a Text or Voicemail Ep. 73. This summer, Michele and Lacy are switching things up with a six-episode series sharing programs or topics they genuinely love. The research articles may not always be front and center, but the same clinical reasoning is. First up, Michele shares the social-emotional program that's changed how she runs her social connection group where elementary-aged kids turn big feelings into something they can actually name, talk about, and work through together. ...

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39:42

Ep. 72 What New OTs Really Want in a Job (Encore)

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/07/01

Send us a Text or Voicemail What do early career occupational therapists really prioritize when choosing their first OT job? Spoiler alert: salary ranks 9th out of 16 factors. In this episode, we break down a fascinating Canadian study that surveyed early career occupational therapists about what actually matters in their job search—and the findings might surprise you. We reveal the top intrinsic and extrinsic factors driving OT employment decisions, why 60% of new grad occupational therapist...

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38:46

Ep. 71 Aquatic Therapy: Using the Pool for More Than...

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/06/24

Send us a Text or Voicemail When you think of therapy in the swimming pool, swim lessons probably come to mind. However, occupational therapy practitioners use water for so many life skills! This week, Michele dives into research from Spain that reveals how aquatic therapy can be beneficial for autistic children in OT settings. The results? Better school performance, improved social competence, and happier kids overall. Plus, Michele shares her own terrifying pool story of a little girl who l...

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37:15

Ep. 70 Listener Questions: Pediatric OT in the Real...

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/06/17

Send us a Text or Voicemail Episode 70 calls for something special! We tackle your real-world pediatric OT questions, from the buzzwords worth knowing to the advice that actually sticks. Thank you for being the heart of this podcast. Here's to 70 more! If you liked this episode, check out our first round of listener questions in episode #50. Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️ Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧 Email us a question or comment a...

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35:26

Ep. 69 Comparing Motor Interventions for Autism

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/06/10

Send us a Text or Voicemail Motor skill difficulties show up in nearly 9 out of 10 autistic kids, which means this question comes up in almost every caseload: what motor-based intervention actually works? This week we dig into a 2025 study that compares three different approaches head to head, and the findings remind us why skilled therapy is irreplaceable. And Michele talks about her session that ended with a Ziploc bag of very questionable slime. We share our own thoughts in the Resea...

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31:35

Ep 68 CIMT Summer Camp

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/06/03

Send us a Text or Voicemail Ever wondered how to actually do constraint-induced movement therapy? This week, we discuss a 2025 randomized trial out of Texas Women's University that ran a pirate-themed CIMT summer camp for kids with unilateral cerebral palsy — 60 hours, 10 days, and a treasure chest at the end. Arrrrr! We cover who qualifies, what a full day at camp looks like, and whether adding virtual reality (drones! robotic exoskeletons! Wii!) actually moves the needle. Plus, the TWU prot...

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47:19

Ep. 67 Polyvagal Theory and Listening Programs

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/05/27

Send us a Text or Voicemail We're covering two topics that kept coming up in your emails and are linked in the literature — polyvagal theory and listening programs. Michele walks us through the principles of polyvagal theory, the recent scientific debate around it, and what a systematic review of sound-based interventions found. The polyvagal conversation is complicated and debated in neuroscience, but when it comes to the listening programs themselves, the research points somewhere surprisin...

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45:54

Ep. 66 Ayres SI vs. ABA

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast ·

2026/05/20

Send us a Text or Voicemail The study we've been waiting for is finally here. An NIH-funded, head-to-head RCT pits Ayres Sensory Integration against ABA for autistic children with sensory differences — and we have thoughts. We're breaking down what makes these two approaches fundamentally different (hello key ingredients and mechanism of action), what the evidence actually says, and what to tell families who are confused about the difference. Buckle up. We share our own thoughts in the ...

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