D eveloping new behavior or encou rag ing behav iora l changes in children can be challenging eve... more D eveloping new behavior or encou rag ing behav iora l changes in children can be challenging even for experienced parents and teachers. Such persuasion is usually verbal, but verbal-only persuasion isn’t always effective, particularly in children with communication difficulties, because it offers limited incentive to change. So, pediatric occupational therapists often use play-based activities to induce behavioral changes by leveraging children’s desire to play. The term play-based occupational therapy refers to the use of a child occupation—that is, play—to cultivate the general skills and abilities needed to perform daily functional activities.1 Play-based occupational therapy has proven successful in motivating behavioral changes in children,1 but it does have limitations. One drawback is that children often undergo treatment in specialized clinics during regular appointment hours. However, behavior such as eating, brushing teeth, or sleeping can’t be observed during this time. ...
Occupational therapists assist people in developing the perception of well-being through the sele... more Occupational therapists assist people in developing the perception of well-being through the selection and performance of daily occupations. The patterns of 10 participants' daily occupational affect experience within a week and its relationship with their levels of well-being were investigated in this study. The distribution pattern of affective experiences within one week was found to be quite stable over intervals
Abstract. As a daily activity, home cooking is an act of care for family members. Most family coo... more Abstract. As a daily activity, home cooking is an act of care for family members. Most family cooks are willing to learn healthy cooking. However, learning healthy cooking knowledge and putting the learned knowledge into real cooking practice are often difficult, due to non-trivial nutritional calculation of multiple food ingredients in a cooked meal. This work presents a smart kitchen with UbiComp technology to improve home cooking by providing calorie awareness of food ingredients used in prepared meals during the cooking process. Our kitchen has sensors to track the number of calories in food ingredients, and then provides real-time feedback to users on these values through an awareness display. Our user study suggests that bringing calorie awareness can be an effective means in helping family cooks maintain the healthy level of calories in their prepared meals.
Due to the lack of standardized tool to quantitatively assess mild motor problems of children, Qu... more Due to the lack of standardized tool to quantitatively assess mild motor problems of children, Quick Motor Problem Inventory (QMPI) was developed for evaluating motor abilities of children aged from 5 to 10 years. The QMPI contains 22 items for assessing reflex integration, muscle cocontraction/stability, balance, coordination and motor planning. This study investigated the psychometric properties of the QMPI. The results of this study indicated that QMPI has satisfactory test-retest reliability (ICC=.96), inter-rater reliability (ICC=.82), and acceptable concurrent validity. It is suggested to be used to detect neuro-motor deficits for children with mild motor problems followed by a comprehensive intervention program which addresses both motor abilities and motor skills.
Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying beha... more Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying behaviors in young children. In occupational therapy, an effective mean to motivate child behavior change is by designing playful activities which leverages the desire of children to play to induce their behavioral change. By embedding digital technology into playful activity, pervasive computing technologies can enhance the effectiveness of play-based occupational therapy. This study proposes to play-based activities targeted at eating and tooth brushing behaviors in young children.
We have explored the design of a playful toothbrush to assist parents in motivating and getting t... more We have explored the design of a playful toothbrush to assist parents in motivating and getting their young children into a habit of proper and thorough tooth brushing. Our system includes a vision-based motion tracker that recognizes different tooth brushing motions, and a fun tooth brushing game in which a young child cleans a virtual picture of his/her dirty teeth by physically brushing his/her own teeth.
Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying beha... more Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying behaviors in young children. In occupational therapy, an effective mean to motivate child behavior change is by designing playful activities which leverages the desire of children to play to induce their behavioral change. By embedding digital technology into activities, pervasive computing technologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of play-based occupational therapy. We describe three playful activity designs targeting eating, tooth brushing, and water drinking behaviors in young children.
World Federation of Occupational Therapists Bulletin
Abstract The continuing education for the occupational therapy practitioners in Taiwan, Taiwan ha... more Abstract The continuing education for the occupational therapy practitioners in Taiwan, Taiwan has existed since the first class graduated from the professional program in this country. It was initiated by professional practitioners in the form of symposium and was held regularly to exchange new knowledge and clinical experiences. Since the Occupational Therapy Association of the Taiwan was founded, the Association has assumed the responsibility of holding symposia. The format has recently changed to case reports and paper presentations. With the grants from the Department of Health, the Association has been holding continuing education courses on various topics in accordance to members' needs and new trends of practice. To ensure that occupational therapy practitioners maintain the most updated professional knowledge, the Association is working on the projects of Continuing Education Credits and Clinical Career Structure, which are both currently under pilot studies. If formally carried out, the two projects will further assure the quality of professional services. The projects will also serve as the basis of enhancing the status of the profession and reasonable reimbursement for occupational therapy services.
Otjr Occupation Participation and Health, Jul 1, 1999
The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of Beery's Developmental Test... more The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of Beery's Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI test) and its hierarchical structure of item difficulties for Taiwanese children. The VMI test was administered to 314 Taiwanese children aged from 3.3 to 13.3 years. The Rasch model of measurement was chosen to investigate the goodness-of-fit of individual items within the VMI test and the sequence of item difficulty. The results revealed that the 24 items of the VMI test measure a unidimensional construct. The difficulty levels of the items were spread widely and evenly across the age range tested. A person separation reliability of .92 and an item separation reliability of .99 indicated that the VMI test had good discriminatory power. However, the different sequence of item difficulty preliminarily found in this study indicates that the item order or the scoring criteria should be revised for Taiwanese children. Further studies of the standardization and validity of the VMI test and revision of the sequence for the Taiwanese population are necessary.
The normal characteristics of adult hand skills in relation to gender and handedness were investi... more The normal characteristics of adult hand skills in relation to gender and handedness were investigated in this study. Sixty undergraduate and graduate university students, 30 males and 30 females, aged from 18 to 32 years were recruited as the subjects. There were 20 right-handers, 5 left-handers and 5 mixed-handers for both male and female groups. The handedness was decided by asking the subjects to write, use scissors with symmetrical shape and catch with one hand. It was found that the females had better hand skills, especially on the dominant hand (p<.01), than the males as measured by Purdue Pegboard Test. For the nondominant hand, there was no significant difference between the performance of the males and the females. No significant handedness and gender by handedness interaction effect was found. Comparing the performance between two hands, a significant difference was found for the female subjects (p<.001) but not for the male subjects. Additionally, the differences of the performance of two hands were significantly larger for the females than for the males (p<.05). The findings of this study might help the occupational therapists in assessing their clients' hand function and setting more appropriate goals for males and females and for two hands. The results of this study also suggested direction for further studies.
ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate the predictors of uncertainty in mothers of children wi... more ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate the predictors of uncertainty in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder. Sixty-seven participants were evaluated via self-reported measurements with respect to their levels of uncertainty, social support, and trust in health professionals, as well as in terms of the developmental levels and occupational performance of their children. Data regarding the mothers’ educational levels and the length of time each mother had known her child’s diagnoses were also collected. The results showed that the mothers’ appraisal support was the best predictor of their levels of uncertainty, accounting for 22.4% of the variance in uncertainty (F(1,65) = 18.75, p < .001). Appraisal support together with both the level of trust in health professionals and educational level accounted for 36.1% of the variance in uncertainty (F(3,63) = 11.86, p < .001). These findings suggest that much of such mothers’ uncertainty is preventable.
D eveloping new behavior or encou rag ing behav iora l changes in children can be challenging eve... more D eveloping new behavior or encou rag ing behav iora l changes in children can be challenging even for experienced parents and teachers. Such persuasion is usually verbal, but verbal-only persuasion isn’t always effective, particularly in children with communication difficulties, because it offers limited incentive to change. So, pediatric occupational therapists often use play-based activities to induce behavioral changes by leveraging children’s desire to play. The term play-based occupational therapy refers to the use of a child occupation—that is, play—to cultivate the general skills and abilities needed to perform daily functional activities.1 Play-based occupational therapy has proven successful in motivating behavioral changes in children,1 but it does have limitations. One drawback is that children often undergo treatment in specialized clinics during regular appointment hours. However, behavior such as eating, brushing teeth, or sleeping can’t be observed during this time. ...
Occupational therapists assist people in developing the perception of well-being through the sele... more Occupational therapists assist people in developing the perception of well-being through the selection and performance of daily occupations. The patterns of 10 participants&#39; daily occupational affect experience within a week and its relationship with their levels of well-being were investigated in this study. The distribution pattern of affective experiences within one week was found to be quite stable over intervals
Abstract. As a daily activity, home cooking is an act of care for family members. Most family coo... more Abstract. As a daily activity, home cooking is an act of care for family members. Most family cooks are willing to learn healthy cooking. However, learning healthy cooking knowledge and putting the learned knowledge into real cooking practice are often difficult, due to non-trivial nutritional calculation of multiple food ingredients in a cooked meal. This work presents a smart kitchen with UbiComp technology to improve home cooking by providing calorie awareness of food ingredients used in prepared meals during the cooking process. Our kitchen has sensors to track the number of calories in food ingredients, and then provides real-time feedback to users on these values through an awareness display. Our user study suggests that bringing calorie awareness can be an effective means in helping family cooks maintain the healthy level of calories in their prepared meals.
Due to the lack of standardized tool to quantitatively assess mild motor problems of children, Qu... more Due to the lack of standardized tool to quantitatively assess mild motor problems of children, Quick Motor Problem Inventory (QMPI) was developed for evaluating motor abilities of children aged from 5 to 10 years. The QMPI contains 22 items for assessing reflex integration, muscle cocontraction/stability, balance, coordination and motor planning. This study investigated the psychometric properties of the QMPI. The results of this study indicated that QMPI has satisfactory test-retest reliability (ICC=.96), inter-rater reliability (ICC=.82), and acceptable concurrent validity. It is suggested to be used to detect neuro-motor deficits for children with mild motor problems followed by a comprehensive intervention program which addresses both motor abilities and motor skills.
Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying beha... more Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying behaviors in young children. In occupational therapy, an effective mean to motivate child behavior change is by designing playful activities which leverages the desire of children to play to induce their behavioral change. By embedding digital technology into playful activity, pervasive computing technologies can enhance the effectiveness of play-based occupational therapy. This study proposes to play-based activities targeted at eating and tooth brushing behaviors in young children.
We have explored the design of a playful toothbrush to assist parents in motivating and getting t... more We have explored the design of a playful toothbrush to assist parents in motivating and getting their young children into a habit of proper and thorough tooth brushing. Our system includes a vision-based motion tracker that recognizes different tooth brushing motions, and a fun tooth brushing game in which a young child cleans a virtual picture of his/her dirty teeth by physically brushing his/her own teeth.
Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying beha... more Pervasive computing technologies can assist parents and occupational therapists in modifying behaviors in young children. In occupational therapy, an effective mean to motivate child behavior change is by designing playful activities which leverages the desire of children to play to induce their behavioral change. By embedding digital technology into activities, pervasive computing technologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of play-based occupational therapy. We describe three playful activity designs targeting eating, tooth brushing, and water drinking behaviors in young children.
World Federation of Occupational Therapists Bulletin
Abstract The continuing education for the occupational therapy practitioners in Taiwan, Taiwan ha... more Abstract The continuing education for the occupational therapy practitioners in Taiwan, Taiwan has existed since the first class graduated from the professional program in this country. It was initiated by professional practitioners in the form of symposium and was held regularly to exchange new knowledge and clinical experiences. Since the Occupational Therapy Association of the Taiwan was founded, the Association has assumed the responsibility of holding symposia. The format has recently changed to case reports and paper presentations. With the grants from the Department of Health, the Association has been holding continuing education courses on various topics in accordance to members' needs and new trends of practice. To ensure that occupational therapy practitioners maintain the most updated professional knowledge, the Association is working on the projects of Continuing Education Credits and Clinical Career Structure, which are both currently under pilot studies. If formally carried out, the two projects will further assure the quality of professional services. The projects will also serve as the basis of enhancing the status of the profession and reasonable reimbursement for occupational therapy services.
Otjr Occupation Participation and Health, Jul 1, 1999
The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of Beery's Developmental Test... more The purpose of this study was to examine the construct validity of Beery's Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI test) and its hierarchical structure of item difficulties for Taiwanese children. The VMI test was administered to 314 Taiwanese children aged from 3.3 to 13.3 years. The Rasch model of measurement was chosen to investigate the goodness-of-fit of individual items within the VMI test and the sequence of item difficulty. The results revealed that the 24 items of the VMI test measure a unidimensional construct. The difficulty levels of the items were spread widely and evenly across the age range tested. A person separation reliability of .92 and an item separation reliability of .99 indicated that the VMI test had good discriminatory power. However, the different sequence of item difficulty preliminarily found in this study indicates that the item order or the scoring criteria should be revised for Taiwanese children. Further studies of the standardization and validity of the VMI test and revision of the sequence for the Taiwanese population are necessary.
The normal characteristics of adult hand skills in relation to gender and handedness were investi... more The normal characteristics of adult hand skills in relation to gender and handedness were investigated in this study. Sixty undergraduate and graduate university students, 30 males and 30 females, aged from 18 to 32 years were recruited as the subjects. There were 20 right-handers, 5 left-handers and 5 mixed-handers for both male and female groups. The handedness was decided by asking the subjects to write, use scissors with symmetrical shape and catch with one hand. It was found that the females had better hand skills, especially on the dominant hand (p<.01), than the males as measured by Purdue Pegboard Test. For the nondominant hand, there was no significant difference between the performance of the males and the females. No significant handedness and gender by handedness interaction effect was found. Comparing the performance between two hands, a significant difference was found for the female subjects (p<.001) but not for the male subjects. Additionally, the differences of the performance of two hands were significantly larger for the females than for the males (p<.05). The findings of this study might help the occupational therapists in assessing their clients' hand function and setting more appropriate goals for males and females and for two hands. The results of this study also suggested direction for further studies.
ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate the predictors of uncertainty in mothers of children wi... more ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate the predictors of uncertainty in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder. Sixty-seven participants were evaluated via self-reported measurements with respect to their levels of uncertainty, social support, and trust in health professionals, as well as in terms of the developmental levels and occupational performance of their children. Data regarding the mothers’ educational levels and the length of time each mother had known her child’s diagnoses were also collected. The results showed that the mothers’ appraisal support was the best predictor of their levels of uncertainty, accounting for 22.4% of the variance in uncertainty (F(1,65) = 18.75, p < .001). Appraisal support together with both the level of trust in health professionals and educational level accounted for 36.1% of the variance in uncertainty (F(3,63) = 11.86, p < .001). These findings suggest that much of such mothers’ uncertainty is preventable.
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