AOTA Inspire 2024 Annual Conference

March 21-23

Easterseals Eastern PA is pleased to share that Melissa Tammaro, Director of Outpatient Therapy Services, and Theresa Soley, Occupational Therapist, were selected through a competitive application process to present at the American Occupational Therapy Association Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. Their poster, Caregiver Coaching Model in Pediatric Outpatient Feeding Therapy: Changing the Family Impact discusses the efficacy of providing group caregiver coaching as part of a pediatric outpatient feeding therapy program. Their findings are based on the modifications they made to the feeding clinic offered at our outpatient center in Reading. At each session, the children meet as a group in one room to explore foods under the direction of an occupational therapist while their parents receive coaching and share their own success and challenges in a separate room. The second half of the session brings the parents and children together to engage in multisensory activities aimed at expanding food choices and moving towards independence at meal times.

Also presenting was Dr. Kelly Mazur, Assistant Professor in the Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program at Cedar Crest College. In addition to her work at the college, Dr. Mazur spends one day per week providing occupational therapy to consumers at our outpatient center in Reading. For the past two years, she has also partnered with Easterseals to add an occupational therapy component to our summer day camp, Camp Lily Lehigh Valley, held on the campus of Cedar Crest College. Her poster, College/Camp Collaboration: Meeting Two Needs with One Experience, uses the collaboration between the doctorate program and Easterseals Camp Lily, to show how to create a successful occupation-based collaboration to meet the needs of both campers and doctoral students.

The AOTA Annual Conference is the largest gathering of occupational therapy practitioners and students in the world, attracting over 6,500 attendees.