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December 9, 2019

Early Intervention with an OT Mom with Danielle Delorenzo

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Episode Summary

What happens when your clinical world and your personal world collide?

Danielle Delorenzo, OTR/L joins the show today to talk about just that. Danielle is an occupational therapist with over 20 years experience working in early intervention (EI). But this time she was not the one conducting the evaluation. Rather she was the parent bringing in her 2 year old son to be evaluated due to concerns with his development.

Danielle shares her journey from navigating EI as a parent, juggling the roles of being a mom and a pediatric therapist, as well as how having a child in early intervention has impacted her as a therapist. She offers up amazing advice from her own experiences to help occupational therapists provide the best care they possibly can.

Show Notes

Sarah and Danielle discuss:

Navigating early intervention assessment as a parent and a therapist
A blessing and a curse of being an OT going through this process
Roles of being a mom, an OT, getting her doctorate, and now being a therapy mom
The importance of having a “village”
The defining moment that made her seek out help
Developmental trajectories
Being the first person as an EI OT to tell parents that something is wrong
Caregiver dyad and regulation
How having a child in early intervention has impacted her as a therapist
Parental guilt
Being present in the moment through mindfulness
Value of working with the parents and families in early intervention
Being an expert means being a life long learner
Questions she had from the mom side
Dealing with people staring at our kids when we are out in public
Using video-taping to facilitate therapy and parental education
One piece of advice for therapists?
Her blog Mornings with an OT Mom: https://morningswithanotmom.com/
Her episode on the OT Schoolhouse Podcast: https://www.otschoolhouse.com/episode38