My Pediatric Observation Essay

Having worked as a rehab aide in an outpatient clinic, my pediatric observation experience was completely different from what I am used to seeing. The therapist I observed was Allie Ribner who works at All Children’s Child Development and Rehab Center. Each session was completely different from one another for the session was geared towards the goals of the child and families. I found this to be a great learning experience for I saw a wide variety of different treatments and age range from 14 months to 15 years old.
The first patient I saw was a 14 month old boy who sustained a non-accidental head injury. He underwent surgery in July that relieved the excess pressure and fluid around his brain, resulting in him becoming a left hemiplegic.

His session was more of a reassessment, and consisted of the administration the Buininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, which assess fine and gross motor. In order for Allie to give the child the test she let him choose which ones he wanted to start with such as running, hopping, or throwing a ball, making the test easier to administer. She allowed him to set up part of an obstacle course after he completed a section of the test to keep him motivated. However, since the test is long and the child will get tired she only administered half of it today and told the mom to work on a few things that he didn’t excel at today.
Overall, I found this to be a great experience, as it allowed me to see more of what pediatric physical therapy entails. I like how therapy is not about just having the child perform an exercise 10 times, but the therapist makes it enjoyable for the child. However, I never really had an interest in development pediatrics and always felt if I did do pediatrics, I would want to be more on the sports and orthopedic end. Although I would not mind spending more time in a developmental pediatric clinic to see if I would grow more of interest, for I do love working and seeing kids