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Grand Valley Magazine, vol. 24, no. 2, Spring 2025
Get PDFGrand Valley Magazine is a quarterly publication about Grand Valley State University produced by University Communications since 2001.https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/gv_magazine/1081/thumbnail.jp
The State of School-Based OT Practice Regarding Concussion-Related Vision Disorders
Get PDFPurpose: More than 830,000 pediatric patients yearly are affected by a concussion (Rosenbaum, 2020). Occupational therapists can support a child\u27s performance in the classroom. Yet, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the current practice of occupational therapists treating those with a concussion in the school setting. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand school-based occupational therapy practice regarding concussion-related vision disorders.
Design: Cross-sectional survey. Participants were licensed OTs practicing in the US, working in a school-based or related pediatric setting, with more than two years of pediatric experience, holding at least a bachelor’s degree from an accredited program. Purposive sampling was used to recruit via professional social media platforms by providing a link to an anonymous Qualtrics survey. Three $40 Amazon gift cards were provided as incentives, funded by a university grant.
Method: A validated survey by Reiser et al. (2020) was used with the authors’ permission. Survey questions irrelevant to the school-based OT were deleted. The survey included 30 closed-ended, multiple-choice, text-entry, and matrix table questions. Data collection occurred from May 16 through August 5, 2024. Data analysis employed descriptive statistics.
Results: A total of 44 respondents completed the survey (N=44). A majority, 75%, indicated OT has a role in treating concussion-related vision symptoms. The majority evaluate using functional tasks and assessment of basic visual skills (e.g., binocularity, accommodation, saccades). Common interventions include school accommodations, ADLs, and visual perceptual tasks. Challenges include a lack of OT referrals and collaboration with other disciplines.
Discussion: Occupational therapists provide assessment and interventions to address visual dysfunction in the school setting following a concussion. There is an inconsistency in OT practice with this population
Challenging Behavior in the Early Childhood Classroom
Get PDFIn early childhood classrooms, it is becoming increasingly common for students to exhibit challenging behaviors. These behaviors present as either internalizing behaviors, such as anxiety, or as externalizing behaviors, such as defiance and aggression. These behaviors are impacting student learning and contributing to an increase in teacher stress and burnout. Early childhood educators feel underprepared to address these behaviors effectively. The project is grounded in Behaviorist Theory and Constructivist Theory. These theories inform Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), which is an evidence-based approach to managing challenging behaviors by focusing on reinforcement, the structure of the environment, and building important skills. The project offers a tiered professional development opportunity for early childhood teachers at Ishpeming Public Schools. Its goal is to increase teacher’s ability to manage challenging behaviors through PBIS strategies. Tier one is a universal training opportunity during a half-day professional development workshop. This workshop will introduce PBIS, the functions of behavior, prevention strategies, and creating a supportive environment. All early childhood educators will participate in tier one. Tier two is a targeted support group, in which monthly small group sessions are offered over four months. The focus will be on Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs), Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs), and data tracking. Tier three is the intensive coaching portion, which provides bi-weekly individualized coaching opportunities over 8-12 weeks. This coaching includes in-class modeling, fidelity checklists, and guided reflections. Pre- and post-training surveys, behavior tracking logs, reflective journals, coaching logs, and fidelity checklists will be used to measure the effectiveness of the project. These tools will measure changes in educator confidence and use of strategies, reductions in student behavior, and implementation fidelity. This project will be conducted in phases over the course of a semester, which is between 16-18 weeks. The implementation plan will include planning, initial training through a workshop, group and individual coaching, and final evaluations and sustainability review. Challenges may include teacher participation, scheduling logistics, and modifying the project for other grade levels and content areas. Other considerations may include administrative support, protected time to provide the needed coaching, and adequate resources that are essential for success
Promise In Practice: Building Belonging and Persistence Through Academic Advising
Get PDFPromise scholarships were created to remove financial barriers to higher education, but financial support is not enough to help students succeed. This project focuses on developing an academic advising office at Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) to support students receiving the Grand Rapids Promise Zone (GRPZ) Scholarship. Using Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth Model and Sanford’s Theory of Challenge and Support as a foundation, the project outlines a culturally responsive and student-centered advising framework. The goal is to improve student retention and persistence, increase academic advising, and build meaningful relationships between students and advisors. Project components include an advising handbook, a shared responsibilities contract, and a post-advising survey to evaluate the impact of the advising experience. By adding an academic advising structure that is specific to GRPZ students, this project helps move promise scholarships beyond financial and into a more comprehensive approach to student success
First quantitative investigation on the dosimetric perturbation from dental hardware in Spot-scanning Proton Arc (SPArc®) therapy and planning strategies in head neck cancer patient population
Get PDFPurpose
There has been a tremendous interest in applying Spot-scanning Proton Arc (SPArc®) to benefit head and neck cancer (HNC) patient population. However, the dental hardware materials effects on the beam distribution are not well understood, and placing spots through the dental hardware may cause an unnecessary degradation of target coverage if the material components differ from the nominal plan. The purpose of this study is to provide a quantitative dose perturbation analysis of the uncertainties caused by dental hardware and introduce a SPArc® planning strategy to mitigate such impacts.
Methods and Materials
A published in-house developed SPArc® optimization algorithm was used to generate two different proton arc plans. The algorithm includes control point resampling, energy layer redistribution, energy layer filtration, and energy layer (EL) resampling. The nominal Spot-scanning Proton Arc dental avoidance (SPArcdental-avoidance) plan introduced an avoidance sector between 300 and 60 degrees to prohibit the proton spots from entering through the dental hardware. Nominal SPArc® plans (SPArcoriginal) were generated without the dental hardware avoidance sector. In the nominal SPArcoriginal and nominal SPArcdental-avoidance plans, dental hardware was overridden as titanium (physical density 4.54 g/cm³). In the dose perturbation evaluations, the dental hardware was overridden to stainless steel (physical density 7.95 g/cm³), for the SPArcdental-avoidance and SPArcoriginal perturbation plans. Dose perturbations were evaluated in terms of OARs dose sparing and target coverage to quantitatively assess the plan’s robustness in case of such material density uncertainties compared to the nominal plans.
Results
The study found there is no statistical difference between nominal SPArcoriginal and nominal SPArcdental-avoidance planning in terms of OARs dose sparing, CTV coverage, and conformity index. There is a statistically significant difference in CTV coverage between titanium and stainless-steel density in the nominal SPArcoriginal and perturbed SPArcoriginal (D95:P =0.0391, Δ=±0.04Gy). There is also a statistically significant difference in dose to OARs in the nominal SPArcoriginal and perturbed SPArcoriginal for left parotid (P =0.0156 Δ=±0.04Gy), right parotid (P =0.0078, Δ=±0.05Gy), and muscular constrictors (P=0.0215, Δ=±0.09Gy). The only statistically significant finding between nominal SPArcdental-avoidance and perturbed SPArcdental-avoidance was the dose to the muscular constrictors (P =0.0156, Δ=±0.03Gy).
Conclusion
This is the first SPArc® study to evaluate the dosimetric perturbations associated with treating HNC patients with dental hardware. The results show a statistical significance between SPArcoriginal in terms of target coverage and OAR doses when changing the hardware density. Meanwhile, the SPArcdental-avoidance showed no statistical significance regarding target coverage and had minimal OARs with a statistical significance when changing the dental hardware density. However, as the difference is marginal, there is no clinically significant difference between these two due to the planning strategy of protecting the oral cavity. In our opinion, both planning strategies work for bilateral HNC with hardware in clinical practice and should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis
A New Opportunity for Funder-Nonprofit Partnership: Advancing Shared Listening Efforts to Learn From Community
Get PDFFunders lack scalable tools and processes for advancing their community listening efforts. As foundations explore this work, there is an opportunity to leverage the nonprofit sector’s experience in listening and to partner more actively with grantees to learn from community.
Nonprofits have embraced community listening more rapidly than funders over the past 10 years. Over 40,000 organizations have affirmatively described their listening practices via How We Listen, a feedback self-assessment that is part of Candid and Charity Navigator’s nonprofit profiles, and approximately 1,400 organizations have participated in Listen4Good’s capacity-building programs. This momentum has enabled the development of tools such as Listen4Good’s Best Practices framework, which outlines feedback practices that center equity. Listen4Good has also developed robust, supportive tools, coaching protocols, and guidance that help organizations build equity-advancing feedback practices.
Foundations can also leverage the nonprofit sector’s expertise in listening. They can benefit from partnering with nonprofits and together learning from the communities both ultimately seek to serve. How can it work? Nonprofits can take the lead in data collection and community engagement (ideally with funding support) and then share aggregate themes and insights with funders to inform their understanding of community gaps and needs.
In this paper, we’ll detail approaches and tools for collaborative listening with funders and nonprofits, leveraging our experience at Listen4Good and the growing toolset we are developing for shared learning. We will describe the readiness process and foci of our supportive efforts working with organizations and highlight examples of collaborative listening efforts where funders are learning together with nonprofits
Listening and Responding Lead to Better Outcomes: Building the Evidence Base for High-Quality Listening Practice
Get PDFIn 2019, Fund for Shared Insight made grants to six research teams to test the hypothesis that if direct-service organizations gain a deeper understanding of how well their programs are serving clients by listening and actively responding to client feedback, they can increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. This body of research explores the case for incorporating participant voice to improve program effectiveness.
As philanthropy seeks to become more responsive to the people and communities most impacted by their decisions, this research has important implications for philanthropic practice, including the selection of grantees, learning in partnership with grantees and community, and capacity-building support that can strengthen feedback practice in ways that advance equity
Rethinking Empowerment: Financial Self-Efficacy in First-Generation College Students
Get PDFFinancial wellness difficulties have increasingly been found as a trend found amongst college students in research, as loans increase and student aid decreases, research is needed to understand new approaches to financial wellness and improving this problem within higher education. This project explores financial wellness and the need for wellness support amongst first-generation college students, as they continue to face unique wellness challenges in education at disparate rates. Specifically, it focuses on Financial Self-Efficacy (FSE) as a mediating factor of financial wellness, instead of a traditional focus on purely financial literacy. Grounded in Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, the First-Generation Financial Empowerment (FGFE) program is an eight-week intervention targeting FSE through mastery experiences, peer mentorship, verbal encouragement, and active strategies to reduce stress around finances. The FGFE intervention will look to take classic financial literacy fundamentals and utilize self-efficacy to develop an intervention that does not just lead to knowledge, but to a college environment that allows students to feel more capable, less stressed, and with a better chance for success and long-term wellness
Explicit Instruction’s Role in Phonemic Awareness and Phonics in Early Childhood Education
Get PDFResearch consistently demonstrated the impact that explicit instruction has on young children’s acquisition of phonemic awareness and phonics skills, critical foundations for later reading success. These skills are linked to achievement in reading in the upper elementary grades and beyond. Children reading below often face challenges across subject areas, and low literacy levels can limit meaningful participation in the community. This project examines research on developing phonemic awareness and phonics skills. With proper training and knowledge, teachers can improve student outcomes in these areas. However, teacher preparation programs and professional development does not adequately address these skills and how to teach them effectively. The goal of this project is to provide educators with information about explicit instruction, phonemic awareness and phonics and stress the importance of a systematic, explicit approach to foundational reading skills. By equipping teachers with proven strategies, schools can better support early literacy development, putting students on a path to academic and personal success