Published Research

Healthcare historians now say, “the world as we knew it shut down” in March 2020. Less than one and a half years later in October 2021, my company and I signed a program development contract with the CEO of a large organization that serves individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) over the lifespan. That was when I began learning firsthand… why so many people believed it would be impossible for me to deliver on my contract.

It’s now three years later and I’m proud to say that I have designed a program that will make a positive difference for a lot of people with IDD. Since I’m an occupational therapist (OT) who could provide direct services, I suppose my contract didn’t feel like a frivolous expenditure. However, it was the fact that I was also a Certified Human Systems Dynamics Professional (HSDP) that allowed me to see the program design phase to its completion. Now, I’ll focus on the current program we have in place and tell you why I say that it’s a new paradigm in service delivery for people with IDD.

Publication: HELEN

Services for People With Intellectual & Developmental Differences...… It’s a New Paradigm

Joyful activities are increasingly incorporated into services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as their benefits to human well-being are widely recognized globally. Research has shown that joyful activities calm anxious nervous systems and elevate depressed moods by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. This has become a team-approach for treating people with sensory processing challenges at Orange Grove Center (OGC) in Chattanooga, TN.

I am a Sensory Services Program Design Professional currently working at OGC. I would like to share a story from OGC’s current service program’s sensory initiatives. This is a sensory story told to me by one of OGC’s Music Navigators named Ellen Poole.

Publication: HELEN

Joyful Activities Are a Team-Approach: Meeting Goals with Adults Who Have Sensory Processing Challenges

Adaptive Learning Environments provides real world solutions to many of today’s most serious social problems. People are dealing everyday with frustrations and the loss of hope that always emerges when human systems become fragmented and lose their interconnectivity. This happens in the inner environment of our brains, bodies, and minds when we lose the “why” of learning. Some people who struggle with the “why” of learning have been given diagnoses like autism, attention deficit disorder, dementia, mental or behavioral disorders. Some have not been given diagnoses but, are living lives of quiet or angry desperation because they feel the loss of interconnectivity with their outer environment. Have you ever wondered why our world has terrorists and gang members? Have you ever grieved over a young person struggling so severely with depression that they take their life? Have you ever been shocked and confused by the story of a teenager taking a gun to their high school and shooting fellow classmates? This Christian Church and School Program Manual explains why this happens and how we can begin to solve these serious problems by paying attention to the interconnectivity of our inner and outer environments. This begins by paying attention to the “why” of new learning in all of us. This begins by learning how to adapt to what we can’t change and becoming empowered enough to change what we can.Adaptive Learning Environments were designed first for Christian Churches and Schools because we have strayed far from the truth compass provided by Jesus’ example. This Program Manual was designed to embed Adaptive Learning Environments in our Christian Churches and Schools because we have forgotten that Jesus was an early victim of the bigotry and hatred we still see today. Adaptive Learning Environments were designed first for Christian Churches and Schools because Jesus has called us to be 21st Century change agents in a fragmented and overly competitive world… one that has evolved too little from the one in which He lived. Jesus has called us to use our “why” of adaptive learning networks to empower others by spiritually empowering ourselves.