Author Biography
Lesly W. James, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA has years of clinical experience working with children with various developmental disabilities and their families. Dr. James has been instrumental in providing professional development for South Carolina’s early intervention Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) team members, including occupational therapists, for over 10 years. Some of her training topics have included: screening, evaluation and functional assessment, the role of occupational therapy in early identification, autism screening, early intervention data collection and electronic record management, and best practices related to transition. As the Data Manager for the South Carolina early intervention program, Dr. James is responsible for managing and monitoring all data for state and federal reporting.
Dr. James’ research, training, and professional development have conveyed continuous interest in autism, pediatric health disparity, telehealth, early identification, and service delivery approaches. She has contributed to expanding professional development through presentation, publications, and grants. One such grant, a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), representatives from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), and the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) supported survey research to examine the role of occupational therapy practitioners in the early identification of children - birth to 6 - with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Findings provided baseline information concerning identified skills, practices, and barriers among 1,396 occupational therapy practitioners supporting the early identification of autism. Dr. James aims to collaborate with scholars who have a shared interest in investigating autism, pediatric health disparity, early identification, and service delivery approaches among infant and toddlers with special health care needs.
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 .15 AOTA CEU (NBCOT 1.88 PDUs/1.5 contact hours) will be awarded upon successful completion of this module.