I’m an OTA and have been working in peds for a few years. My OT who I’ve been with on and off since day one and is a huge mentor just told me she’s going to lead our treatment session this week, incorporating some gross motor/primitive reflexes. Last week she was talking about hand development etc and I felt like I knew none of it. She keeps rehiring me for different contracts but I’m worried she doesn’t think I have the skills I need to have. Currently getting my masters in OT. From what I’ve understand motor learning says practicing the tasks/activities in entirety is what drives learning; ie, do handwriting to get better at handwriting. My mentor always talks about parsing apart what specific components of that activity the child struggles with and targeting those; aka hand strength, visual perception, etc.
I feel like my sessions throughout the years have been super, not great? I do some hand strength and then work on handwriting in different contexts, grading paper, etc. sometimes it all feels unskilled to me. I’m overwhelmed learning about child development, etc. because I retained none of this in OTA school. I am doing great in my masters but feel like as an OTA, I’m very behind and it makes me worried for my career as an OTR.
Anyone feel like working in peds feels so unskilled? How often are you incorporating gross motor, etc in school-based? Advice wanted please!