Occupational Therapy for Autistic Adults
Occupational therapy uses activities and tools that teach your autistic family member how to improve her quality of life. The repetition of occupational therapy can be particularly helpful, especially with new skills and techniques. Tailoring this therapy to your family member’s needs is going to get her the best results, including helping her to meet her goals around independence.
Developing and Practicing Coordination
Some autistic people have difficulty knowing where their bodies or parts of their bodies are in relation to other items. There are also coordination difficulties that make these issues more pronounced. Activities that seem unrelated, like putting together puzzles, can actually help with these problems because they help to develop greater coordination and awareness of the body in space.
Playing to Learn
One of the more important aspects of occupational therapy is that it doesn’t have to feel boring or like therapy at all. Finding ways to incorporate fun and play into learning skills that are difficult brings a different perspective to that task. It’s a lot easier to learn and to retain what’s learned through play than it is to learn in ways that do not incorporate fun at all.
Practicing Activities that Help with Independence
Your family member may need help with a variety of different activities now. Prompts may be necessary for things like brushing hair, brushing teeth, remembering to shower, and more. If your family member’s goal involves becoming more independent, it’s important to move away from external prompts if possible. Practicing these activities and doing things like habit stacking, which involves flowing naturally from one task into another, can help significantly.
Adapting to Transitions
Transitioning from one activity to another can be difficult for autistic adults. Habit stacking works, but it does involve transitioning from one task to the next. By finding adaptive tools and strategies and learning to employ them in a safe setting, your family member can start to gain positive results from what she’s learning. As a result, it becomes easier for her to flow with her routines, which can in turn help her to be more independent.
Finding the right autism resources for your family member can make all the difference in helping her to be more independent. Some of these tools may not allow her to live on her own just yet, but they become building blocks as she works toward meeting a goal of living more independently in the future than she does now.
If you are considering autism resources in Speedway, IN, please call the caring staff at RSI Cares. Serving Greater Indianapolis Area. Call for Immediate Info & Assistance: 317-471-0750.
As a practicing Registered Nurse, Etelka was keenly aware of a void in quality patient care that could be provided in the home. She embarked upon a journey to develop a home health care agency that would exceed all expectations and become a trusted partner to physicians and patients.
A Distinguished Career From Nurse to Director of Nursing to President of Home Services Unlimited
Etelka’s distinguished career followed a logical progression to her position as President of Home Services Unlimited. She graduated as a nurse practitioner with a Bachelor of Nursing (RN) in 1972 from Meshgorya University in the Ukraine, close to where she lived with her family. She married her husband Phil in 1973 and decided in 1977 that they would relocate to the United States to be closer to family and to come to this land of opportunity. With an eagerness to continue her budding career, Etelka sat for and passed her Boards in the U.S. in 1979.
A Love and Talent for Working with the Elderly
Etelka began her nursing career in the U.S. at Colonial Crest, now part of Golden Living, where shewasthe In-service Coordinator, the Director of Training and Education and Director of Nursing, a position she occupied for several years.
With a group of partners, she co-founded Adept Corporation, which operated group homes for the mentally challenged. The business was successful and in 1996, Etelka sold her share to return to her roots, caring for the elderly.
In January of 1997, Etelka opened Home Services Unlimited as a fully licensed business to provide home health care. In her quest to learn to do better for her patients, she had already obtained a Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA) in May of 1990 from the College of St. Francis. As President of Home Services Unlimited, Inc., Etelka guides the trusted, experienced care model Home Services Unlimited uses to continue providing excellent home health care.
Giving Back to the Community of Indianapolis
Volunteering for community services is a high priority for Etelka. Her memberships include the Indiana Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, Executive Women in Health Care and the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care, where she is a member of the Board of Directors.
Etelka has also served on the Board of Directors with Hooverwood Home, a highly regarded geriatric facility, since 1997 and as the President for 2005-2006. Through her community work, she has received several awards and accolades, including the Nora McFarland award in 2002, from the Indiana Association of Home and Hospice Care.
Etelka was honored as a “Health Care Hero” by the Indianapolis Business Journal. The issue can be read online here:
http://mags.ibj.com/activemagazine/welcome/html/ibjhch.html.
After clicking on the link, then click on the image of the issue’s front page. After that, you can browse through the issue or click in a box near the top of your internet browser to adjust the page to 17, which is where Etelka’s article appears.
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