AOTA

Get an AOTA Digital Badge to share your knowledge of Early Identification when you complete selected AOTA CE courses

Click here for details 

Kristin Hildebrand, OTD, OTR/L, Author and Kris Barnekow, PhD, OTR/L, Editor

Earn .2 CEU (NBCOT 2.5 PDUs/2 contact hours)

Module Description

This course is the second of four modules in the online course series Occupational Therapy’s Contribution to Early Identification of the Needs of Young Children Using a Family-Centered Approach. Each course provides an exceptional self-paced, online learning experience. Additional courses will create a unique and beneficial professional learning opportunity for occupational therapists who provide services to young clients and their families.

Module 2 - The Caregiver-Infant Relationship: Screening for Emotional Distress introduces the learner to theories and best practice models that facilitate improved, healthy caregiver-infant relationships. Therapeutic strategies, techniques, and support networks are reviewed to improve caregiver self-esteem, help caregivers understand infant cues and behaviors, and educate caregivers on developmental milestones.
The role of occupational therapists in screening and referring caregivers for perinatal mental health disorders, specifically postpartum depression (PPD) and perinatal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is examined. Barriers that hinder screening efforts are addressed.

This module should take approximately 2 hours to complete. Interactive questions are provided to reinforce course content.  Developing an action plan helps learners apply course concepts and concludes the module.  References and resources are available to promote additional learning.

•Mobile Access – the course is easily viewed on a tablet making your learning portable and facilitating on-the-job access to resources.

Learning Objectives

After completing this module, you will:

1. Justify the role of occupational therapy in identifying postpartum depression (PPD) and perinatal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

2. Identify appropriate surveillance strategies to evaluate the caregiver-infant relationship.

3. Select appropriate screening instruments to use with caregivers who may be at risk for PPD or perinatal PTSD.

4. Appraise and address barriers hindering efforts to screen for postpartum depression and perinatal PTSD.

5. Utilize the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO), Model of Co-Occupation, and attachment theory to strategize and foster an improved healthy caregiver-infant relationship.

Author Biography

Kristin Hildebrand, OTD, OTR/L is an occupational therapist who provides home-based, family-centered services in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Hildebrand’s passion for the caregiver-infant relationship began when she worked as a service coordinator in Chicago’s Early Intervention Program. She saw firsthand the impacts of perinatal emotional distress on mothers and their infants’ development.  During her masters and doctorate programs in occupational therapy at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Dr. Hildebrand focused her studies on caregiver and infant mental health and co-occupation.

Editor Biography

Kris Barnekow, PhD, OTR/L has served families of children enrolled in services through Milwaukee County’s Birth to 3 Program.  Dr. Barnekow’s clinical experience provided her with an understanding of the importance of family empowerment and navigation through systems of care.  For that reason her research has focused on health promotion and disease prevention strategies for parents and children who have special health care needs.  A primary concentration of Dr. Barnekow’s research is the promotion of optimal developmental outcomes through early identification of social emotional disorders in mothers and young children.  Collectively, the findings of her research indicate that mothers of children with special health care needs who reside in urban areas are more likely to screen positive for depression and perinatal posttraumatic stress disorder.  Even though the Institute of Medicine and the CDC recommend screening in community settings to detect maternal and child social emotional disorders, early intervention providers are currently not incorporating this evidence into practice.  Consequently, screening of mothers and children remains relatively low in early intervention settings.

Another focus of Dr. Barnekow’s research program is health literacy.  As such, she is part of an interdisciplinary team that has investigated the readability of early intervention program literature and the health literacy skills of parents who have children enrolled in early intervention programs. While parents of children enrolled in Birth to 3 possess adequate functional health literacy; many parents/caregivers of children with special health care needs continue to have difficulty navigating multiple systems of care. This may be partially due to poor written and oral communication skills of their providers, which negatively affects the parents’ interactive health literacy abilities. She aims to collaborate with scholars who have a shared interest in investigating the relation between health literacy concepts, early identification of social emotional disorders, and promotion of optimal outcomes for children with special health care needs.

Learning Level
Intermediate

Target Audience
Occupational Therapists

AOTA Classification Codes for Continuing Education Activities 
Category 2:  Occupational Therapy Process: Evaluation and Intervention

Continuing Education Credit
A certificate of completion for .2 AOTA CEU (2.5 NBCOT PDUs/2.0 contact hours) will be awarded upon successful completion of this module.