For my second interview I interviewed Ms. Rojas. She is an Occupational Therapist who works at Garvy Grade School as well as Lutheran General Hospital. She has been currently working at Garvy for the past four years, but has been part of CPS for five years. Before she started at Garvy she was a rehabilitation aid at Lutheran General Hospital; she still works at Lutheran General working with adults. Ms. Rojas works with kids in school ranging from pre-school up to 8th grade. When working with adults the ages vary from 18 and up, she was working with a patient recently who just turned 102 and had a hip replacement.
When asked what she likes most about her job Ms. Rojas said that she gets the best of both worlds. When she is working with her "little friends" they're always fun to work with and she can see them develop and begin to become independent in the classroom which will begin to show at home as well. When she is at the hospital working with the adults she watches them gain their independence back and teaches them to be independent in their homes. The challenges of being an Occupational Therapist are that time management is a very important along with being able to think fast and be prepared for whatever obstacles a patient may bring.
The advice Ms. Rojas gave to me as someone who is now interested in this field is that I should research the field more along with the class requirements for college. She also said that I should take all my prerequisites as soon as possible because it will help greatly when taking other classes. Planning ahead is also important especially in the case of applying and getting into Grad School. Ms. Rojas also informed me that in order to work in the field and complete school I have to become an expert at multi-tasking. Asking Ms. Rojas about how the field/ job will change in the next 10-20 years was an open ended question. She said from the time that she started school and now the field had already changed greatly. The new focus for kids these days is technology; there is a campaign going around now to put iPads in the schools for kids to use, and instead of handwriting the new focus is teaching the kids to type. For students with different needs the slightest changes can affect them greatly, when schools begin to switch from the regular Elmer’s liquid glue to glue sticks it gets hard for a teacher to help the kids understand their strengths. Kids with muscular problems need to be taught the amount of pressure and strength they can use in certain situations and using liquid glue as a teaching tool is a special way of helping them learn that.
I asked Ms. Rojas what type of personality is needed to work in this field and she said that you need to be active, willing to accept change, be very flexible, manageable of your time, and to be organized. The different techniques Ms. Rojas uses help the patients learn motor skills, body awareness, directionality, etc. She teaches the kids school based materials that can easily be transferred to a classroom and uses equipment that accommodate their needs to the environment. A type of equipment Ms. Rojas uses for example is the body sock which is a nylon/spandex blanket that helps kids with a sensory processing disorder. The blanket gives a child a calming effect, the different fabric alerts the child's central Nervous System and helps a child to realize a new material. When Ms. Rojas has the children play games she picks games that will establish therapeutic skills. The games she chooses help with using hand strength, eye coordination, using a fine hand grasp, directionality, and balance. I have become very interested in the field of Occupational Therapy and may consider this as a new career option for myself.
