NEURO AFFIRMING ALLIED HEALTH CARE

Yes! We are a neuro affirming practice…

Person-centred care is, and always has been, at the very heart of Occupational Therapy. From the early days of basket weaving to give patients an occupation and promote recovery to the science it is today, the individual, their strengths, their preferences and their goals have remained at the core of our profession. The Model of Occupational Performance (Chapparo & Ranka) places the individual in the centre, surrounded by developmental area, performance tasks, and then the environment in which they function.

Today, we call this neuro affirming. We embrace neuro diversity. We distinguish from neuro typical development.  But is there more to this rising movement than just a new buzz word?

We are all unique and have our own set of individual differences, physically and neurologically.  A neuro affirming approach recognises and celebrates our individual differences as a strength and the foundation from which we learn, and our unique ways of thinking, being, and doing are embraced. Delay, injury or disability isn’t viewed as a deficit to be fixed.  It’s about empowerment and growth, and regardless of our ‘hardwiring’, strengths can be harnessed for personal development to enrich life experience.

Occupational Therapy has always focussed on seeing the ability, not the dis-ability, and uses the capacities an individual possesses to develop other areas.

Occupational Therapy has always focussed on the client’s goals and what they want to achieve, what is important to them, and not some abstract, artificial, nonfunctional goal taken from an arbitrary list.

Occupational Therapy changes the environment or the task to meet the individual’s needs, and has never tried to change the individual to fit the environment or the task.

Occupational Therapy provides support in ways that embrace a person’s uniqueness, without a desire to change it but to support the individual to work towards a life they identify as fulfilling and meaningful to them.

At Building Blocks OT, Speech and Physio, this is our ethos:

• We celebrate individual difference in us all
• We promote the individual’s identity without the language, desire or actions to fix or cure
• Sensory preferences are acknowledged, developed and worked with, not denied or restricted
• Autonomy is respected and children are permitted to move their body as needed to support attention, interaction and regulation
• All communication forms are accepted
• We focus on what is meaningful to the individual child
• Goals and interventions are developed by parents and children as age appropriate
• We don’t try to reduce, alter or replace behaviours just because of a diagnosis
• We adjust the environment to suit each child’s needs
• We are purely focussed on helping the individual to maximise their independence and function in activities that are meaningful to them