4.09.2012

April Challenge: change 1 thing

I apologize that I did not write down my citation here, but hopefully the thought will count. Some time ago, I read a post by another blogger (maybe you?) who I believe had attended the Autism West conference. The author was talking about a presentation by Winnie Dunn where she had said to "Change one thing with one person." What a concept.

I feel like when I go to a conference, I come back bursting with new ideas and things to try and whole new schools of thought to try to enact. Sometimes, by being weighed down by the enormity of the things that could be changed, it's hard to take any action at all. If we do that (i.e. nothing) then what was the point of spending hundreds of dollars on the new course or the time spent reading that article? And then starts the sneaky guilt spiral... which gets me nowhere.

So... deep breath... Abandon the glorious hopes of all the possible changes you could make to your clinic, your treatments, your mindset. You don't need to forget about it forever, but maybe just make a note for another time. Instead, take today and make ONE change with ONE person. Maybe this will be showing that struggling intervention student some new strategies in a 1:1 session. A time to sneak in an extra question/measurement/test into your evaluation. A friendly hello to a person you clash with too often. ONE change is doable, and may lead to a larger change in the future.


If you completed this challenge, share your ONE change in the comments below. It doesn't need to be ground-breaking to be celebrated.

2 comments:

Abby said...

That was me! (original post here: http://pediatricotblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/just-one-thing.html) I'm still working on asking parents about their child's strengths. It is amazing how changing one thing, with one client, can lead to more changes on a larger scale. We just have to start somewhere :)

And I highly recommend listening to Winnie Dunn speak if you ever have the opportunity. She is very inspirational! As was the entire Autism West Conference. I'm sad I won't be able to attend the AOTA annual conference.

Cheryl said...

Thank you Abby! I felt really bad when I couldn't remember where I read the quote! and thanks for commenting... I don't know where everybody else is at!