Podcast · Learning

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast

by Michele Alaniz & Lacy Wright · English · Learning

Welcome to Ideas at Play , the go-to podcast for busy pediatric occupational therapy professionals! Whether you're in school-based settings, early intervention, or outpatient practice, we bring you evidence-based strategies, practical tips, and engaging discussions to support your OT practice w

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 39 min
Latest: 7 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026 · 37 min

Ep. 86 Play as an Occupation: The Play-Work Continuum in Pediatric OT

Send us a Text or Voicemail Pediatric OTs use play in nearly everything we do, but how much of it is actually play? In this episode, we review the play-work continuum, which separates free play from play as a vehicle for goals. Michele also shares 10 ways to apply it in your sessions, from writing goals for play to setting up the environment and how to facilitate safe rough-and-tumble play. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you to read the original article too. &n...

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

30 Sep 2026 · 32 min
Ep. 85 Sensory Garments and Participation for Autistic Children
Send us a Text or Voicemail Sensory garments are everywhere and frequently marketed to our clients and families — but almost none of the research asks what happens after a parent clicks "buy." This episode discusses a study with off-the-shelf sensory garments and their impact on participation for autistic children. The results split in a way that may change how you talk to families about these products — and expose a bigger problem with how we measure outcomes for autistic kids in the first p...
23 Sep 2026 · 40 min
Ep. 84 CO-OP for Kids with DCD and ADHD
Send us a Text or Voicemail Up to 50% of kids with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) also have ADHD — and that overlap changes how motor gains actually stick. We're back with another episode on CO-OP: goal, plan, do, check, and 8 strategies for building motor skills through problem-solving instead of repetition. If you've been using a repetition-based, motor-learning approach with a child and haven’t seen much success, this episode has an alternative worth trying. And....if you missed...
16 Sep 2026 · 32 min
Ep. 83 Building Spoon-Feeding Skills
Send us a Text or Voicemail “You gain what you train” — but what does that actually look like session to session? In this episode, Michele and Lacy review a case study that has all the ingredients of a solid motor learning intervention for self-feeding with a spoon. We talk through how the intervention was built, what actually improved (and what didn't), and where the study's limitations leave room to make this more practical — think play, caregiver coaching, adaptive tools. We share ou...
9 Sep 2026 · 45 min
Ep. 82 Teaching Daily Living Skills to Autistic Teens
Send us a Text or Voicemail Daily living skill performance can be hard to learn for autistic teens, even when their cognition is average or above average. This episode covers a randomized controlled trial testing a manualized program that teaches laundry, cooking, and money management to autistic adolescents, compared head-to-head with the well-respected PEERS program. We cover the results and how an OT lens could take this already-strong intervention even further. We share our own thou...
2 Sep 2026 · 32 min
Ep. 81 OT Research for Down Syndrome
Send us a Text or Voicemail Down syndrome is one of the most common diagnoses OTs work with, yet the research base behind it is surprisingly small. This week, Lacy and Michele discuss a new AJOT scoping review featuring some of the most unexpected interventions they've ever covered, from elephants to qigong massage to traditional dance. Behind the fun, though, is a bigger story about where this research is happening, and where it's falling short. We share our own thoughts in the Researc...
26 Aug 2026 · 46 min
Ep. 80 OT in Aotearoa New Zealand
Send us a Text or Voicemail Picture a beach in Aotearoa New Zealand — a gnarled pōhutukawa tree perfect for climbing, a rope swing hanging over the sand, and a stick sized exactly to a child's height, ready for a game passed down through generations. In this milestone 80th episode, we sit down with, Susi King, a Playmaker from New Zealand to explore how culture, land, and indigenous wellbeing frameworks shape pediatric OT practice on the other side of the world. And, hear about the new burnou...
19 Aug 2026 · 33 min
Ep. 79 Executive Function (Working Memory) Strategies for Autism and ID
Send us a Text or Voicemail A 6 year-old can't hold onto multi-step directions long enough to follow them — not because he isn't listening, but because his working memory drops the information before he can act on it. This week, Michele brings a real case to the table and digs into a 2024 study comparing two cognitive strategies — enactment and visualization — to see which one actually helps kids with autism and intellectual disability with working memory. Spoiler: one of them is the clear wi...
12 Aug 2026 · 34 min
Ep. 78 Handwriting, ADHD, and Telehealth
Send us a Text or Voicemail Can a therapist facilitate meaningful handwriting improvement through telehealth? A recent randomized controlled trial out of Ankara, Turkey put that question to the test with kids ages six to eight with the inattentive type of ADHD — and the results are not what Lacy and Michele expected. Listen to hear what the researchers actually did over eight weeks of telehealth sessions and why the approach "shouldn't" have worked. Plus: a Nailed It story with an escal...
5 Aug 2026 · 37 min
Ep. 77 Outcome Measures for Autistic Preschoolers
Send us a Text or Voicemail Michele found 74 outcome measures to consider for her autistic preschoolers! She and Lacy discuss the top measures from the recent scoping review: which tools show up most in the research, which ones earn a five-star rating for covering the most ground, and where our biggest blind spot as OTs is hiding. Plus, hear about a fun self-care app that may help you as we head into the new school year. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you...
29 Jul 2026 · 41 min
Summer of Discovery: Building a Money Management Program from Scratch
Send us a Text or Voicemail Too cartoonish. Too advanced. Too many worksheets — nothing fit, so Lacy built her own money management program from scratch. This week she's breaking down exactly how she did it: from backwards design to key ingredients and changes made along the way, it's a behind-the-scenes look at turning a need into a working program. Plus, a listener question worth its own deep dive on neurodiversity affirming practice. Request the money management program discussed by ...
22 Jul 2026 · 39 min
Summer of Discovery: Building & Trialing a Sensory Activity Schedule
Send us a Text or Voicemail “Sensory” is everywhere in pediatric OT, but how do you actually know if and when to try a sensory activity schedule? How do you set one up? When do you know if it is working — or if you're just guessing and hoping? This week, Michele walks through her real system for building a sensory activity schedule from the ground up, from figuring out what a kid actually needs, to adapting it to classrooms or homes, to knowing exactly when to call it a win (or cut your...
15 Jul 2026 · 44 min
Summer of Discovery: Building a Fieldwork Program
Send us a Text or Voicemail Ep. 74 Michele and Lacy continue their Summer of Discovery series. This time, Lacy shares what she's learned from supervising more than 50 fieldwork students, from building a program to knowing exactly when to loop in the academic fieldwork coordinator (a lesson she learned the hard way, twice). Lacy walks through how she structures orientation, communication, and supervision to turn nervous students into confident new therapists — and shares the one rule she...
8 Jul 2026 · 45 min
Summer of Discovery: Little Spot of Feelings
Send us a Text or Voicemail Ep. 73. This summer, Michele and Lacy are switching things up with a six-episode series sharing programs or topics they genuinely love. The research articles may not always be front and center, but the same clinical reasoning is. First up, Michele shares the social-emotional program that's changed how she runs her social connection group where elementary-aged kids turn big feelings into something they can actually name, talk about, and work through together. ...
1 Jul 2026 · 39 min
Ep. 72 What New OTs Really Want in a Job (Encore)
Send us a Text or Voicemail What do early career occupational therapists really prioritize when choosing their first OT job? Spoiler alert: salary ranks 9th out of 16 factors. In this episode, we break down a fascinating Canadian study that surveyed early career occupational therapists about what actually matters in their job search—and the findings might surprise you. We reveal the top intrinsic and extrinsic factors driving OT employment decisions, why 60% of new grad occupational therapist...
24 Jun 2026 · 38 min
Ep. 71 Aquatic Therapy: Using the Pool for More Than Swim Lessons (Encore)
Send us a Text or Voicemail When you think of therapy in the swimming pool, swim lessons probably come to mind. However, occupational therapy practitioners use water for so many life skills! This week, Michele dives into research from Spain that reveals how aquatic therapy can be beneficial for autistic children in OT settings. The results? Better school performance, improved social competence, and happier kids overall. Plus, Michele shares her own terrifying pool story of a little girl who l...
17 Jun 2026 · 37 min
Ep. 70 Listener Questions: Pediatric OT in the Real World (Round 2)
Send us a Text or Voicemail Episode 70 calls for something special! We tackle your real-world pediatric OT questions, from the buzzwords worth knowing to the advice that actually sticks. Thank you for being the heart of this podcast. Here's to 70 more! If you liked this episode, check out our first round of listener questions in episode #50. Stay informed, stay curious, and stay playful! ✏️ Sign up for our newsletter by clicking here. 📧 Email us a question or comment a...
10 Jun 2026 · 35 min
Ep. 69 Comparing Motor Interventions for Autism
Send us a Text or Voicemail Motor skill difficulties show up in nearly 9 out of 10 autistic kids, which means this question comes up in almost every caseload: what motor-based intervention actually works? This week we dig into a 2025 study that compares three different approaches head to head, and the findings remind us why skilled therapy is irreplaceable. And Michele talks about her session that ended with a Ziploc bag of very questionable slime. We share our own thoughts in the Resea...
3 Jun 2026 · 31 min
Ep 68 CIMT Summer Camp
Send us a Text or Voicemail Ever wondered how to actually do constraint-induced movement therapy? This week, we discuss a 2025 randomized trial out of Texas Women's University that ran a pirate-themed CIMT summer camp for kids with unilateral cerebral palsy — 60 hours, 10 days, and a treasure chest at the end. Arrrrr! We cover who qualifies, what a full day at camp looks like, and whether adding virtual reality (drones! robotic exoskeletons! Wii!) actually moves the needle. Plus, the TWU prot...
27 May 2026 · 47 min
Ep. 67 Polyvagal Theory and Listening Programs
Send us a Text or Voicemail We're covering two topics that kept coming up in your emails and are linked in the literature — polyvagal theory and listening programs. Michele walks us through the principles of polyvagal theory, the recent scientific debate around it, and what a systematic review of sound-based interventions found. The polyvagal conversation is complicated and debated in neuroscience, but when it comes to the listening programs themselves, the research points somewhere surprisin...
20 May 2026 · 45 min
Ep. 66 Ayres SI vs. ABA
Send us a Text or Voicemail The study we've been waiting for is finally here. An NIH-funded, head-to-head RCT pits Ayres Sensory Integration against ABA for autistic children with sensory differences — and we have thoughts. We're breaking down what makes these two approaches fundamentally different (hello key ingredients and mechanism of action), what the evidence actually says, and what to tell families who are confused about the difference. Buckle up. We share our own thoughts in the ...
13 May 2026 · 41 min
Ep. 65 Early Intervention: The GAME Approach
Send us a Text or Voicemail Can a home program alone replace clinic-based therapy? This week, we put it to the test with a randomized controlled study on the GAME intervention (Goal, Activity, Motor, Enrichment) for toddlers with developmental delays. We discuss the steps of the GAME intervention, supportive parent coaching, and how you can implement this in your own caseload tomorrow. Plus, Michele shares about a rough consult, Lacy tries something new with student groups, and there's a tiny...
6 May 2026 · 46 min
Ep. 64 Handwriting Research Tour (yes, skip the pencil grips)
Send us a Text or Voicemail If you've ever debated pencil grips or the perfect grasp pattern in an IEP meeting, this episode is for you. We take a tour of the handwriting literature — pulling from OT, education, ergonomics, and hand therapy — to find out what actually moves the needle in handwriting intervention. Learn with us as we dig into why force matters more than grip position, what the research says about weighted and adapted pencils, and why grasp patterns are way less important than ...
29 Apr 2026 · 40 min
Ep. 63 Preparing Autistic Teens for Adulthood
Send us a Text or Voicemail If you work with older kids, you know the feeling — suddenly your caseload has a teenager and the stakes feel higher, the clock feels shorter, and the parents feel more anxious than ever. Good news: the research has some clear direction on what actually moves the needle for autistic teens heading into adulthood. Spoiler — it might not be what you think. This week, we dig into the MAPSS program and come away with practical tools you can use in any setting. We share ...
22 Apr 2026 · 39 min
Ep. 62 CVI Interventions
Send us a Text or Voicemail Cerebral visual impairment (CVI) is the leading cause of low vision in children and one of the most underidentified conditions in pediatric practice. This week, we are getting into the research about CVI, sharing a free tool for collaborating with parents, and discussing 4 evidence-based interventions you can start weaving into your sessions. One of them is the most surprising and effective low-tech treatment idea we have come across in a long time. We share our ow...
15 Apr 2026 · 41 min
Ep. 61 Improving Food Intake & Family Vibes
Send us a Text or Voicemail Feeding therapy doesn’t have to feel like a power struggle. In this episode, we explore how shifting from pressure to partnership can improve food intake and family vibes. We discuss new research on responsive feeding for children with G-tubes and share how coaching caregivers, honoring child cues, and creating a positive mealtime environment can lead to meaningful change—without focusing on every tiny feeding skill. Real research, real strategies, and ideas you ca...
8 Apr 2026 · 26 min
Ep. 60 Ideas at Work Highlights
Send us a Text or Voicemail We're celebrating episode 60 by going inside our Ideas at Work pilot group. Real therapists, real sessions, real problem-solving. We troubleshoot a tough emotional regulation session, share how one therapist used a basketball intervention, and break down how to write airtight documentation when your funding source wants to put you in a box (hint - this is where the key ingredients and mechanism of action come into play). This is evidence-based practice in the wild ...
1 Apr 2026 · 40 min
Ep. 59 Coaching in Early Intervention
Send us a Text or Voicemail Most OTs in early intervention think they're coaching, BUT the research says otherwise. In this episode, we discuss a scoping review on caregiver coaching in early intervention — the five key ingredients, why the model can be hard to do in real life, and five action steps you can take into someone's living room on a Thursday morning. Turns out coaching is a skill, not a vibe. Let's get better at it. We share our own thoughts in the Research Review and encourage you...
25 Mar 2026 · 26 min
Ep. 58 Zippers: An OT + Speech Approach
Send us a Text or Voicemail Most of us teach zippers the same way—repeat, repeat, repeat—and hope it clicks. But what if there’s a better way? In this episode, we break down a simple, creative approach to teaching zippering skills that combines OT and speech strategies to help kids learn faster. We review a pilot study using storytelling, targeted vocabulary, and a themed zipper vest—and then show you how to apply it in real sessions using child-led language, special interests, and easy take-...
18 Mar 2026 · 38 min
Ep. 57 Sensory Activity Schedules
Send us a Text or Voicemail Sensory activity schedules—often called sensory diets—are used every day in school-based therapy, but how strong is the evidence behind them? In this episode, we review a recent systematic review that examined whether sensory activity schedules improve classroom participation for students with sensory processing differences. We unpack what the research found about its effect on school performance and share six practical ingredients therapists can use to build more ...

About Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast

Ideas at Play: An Occupational Therapy (OT) Podcast is a English learning podcast from Michele Alaniz & Lacy Wright. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Michele Alaniz & Lacy Wright
Language: English
Category: Learning
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 39 min
Latest episode: 7 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1795213067

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