Browsing by Author "Oleshchuk, Oksana"

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    Occupation-Based Group Interventions Impacting Social Participation For Autistic Children and Adolescents: A Rapid Systematic Review
    (2022-05) Oleshchuk, Oksana; Legue, Anna; Gibbons, Molly; Banks, Riley; Chase, Tony; Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Human Sciences
    This rapid systematic review examines the literature on effective group interventions targeting social participation in autistic children and adolescents. Autistic youth often receive occupational therapy with social participation being a distinct targeted outcome. However, recent advocacy has introduced a need for reducing social skills training in favor of client-centered social participation, which can be done through the lens of occupational therapy’s unique core values. This review provides an overview and analysis of 20 studies that addressed a wide range of occupation-based group interventions in the areas of art, play, physical activity, school-based, and social skills group training (SSGT). Findings reveal moderate strength of evidence for the use of occupation-based group interventions in enhancing social participation in autistic children and adolescents, limited mostly by lack of blinding in studies. This review supports the use of group occupation-based interventions which can widen, inform, and guide the intervention approaches for occupational therapy practitioners working with this population.
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    Tier 1 Interoception Interventions in an Elementary School
    (2024-05) Oleshchuk, Oksana; Wasmuth, Sally; Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Human Sciences; Miller, Kari
    Interoception, or the perception of one’s internal body signals, is a building block for emotion regulation and may be protective against adverse health experiences. Interoception is not innate but is rather a skill that must be learned as a person ages. While elementary schools tackle many facets of development, there are minimal interventions to address interoception. The main site is an elementary school in a high poverty neighborhood that offers a large amount of support to students in many areas but did not have any formal interoception interventions. This capstone project developed a tier 1 interoception intervention, piloted the intervention, educated teachers on interoception, and presented the intervention to staff members to address continued use of the intervention. The program that developed was a 6-session program implemented over 6 weeks adapted from The Interoception Curriculum: A Guide to Developing Mindful Self-Regulation for use in the inclusion general education elementary classroom. The program showed weak quantitative evidence but strong qualitative evidence showing the program was successful at addressing interoception in the participating classrooms by increasing body awareness, vocabulary for expressing needs and emotions, and increasing related communication. Along with the success of the pilot intervention, facilitators and barriers to continued implementation were found and analyzed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Facilitators to future implementation were found to include the innovation, the compatibility, resources and connections in the inner setting, and the need of the individuals. Barriers to success included structural characteristics of the inner setting and the capability and motivation of implementing individuals. This project details the development of a tier 1 interoception intervention for elementary school students.