Is it still child’s play when a global pandemic comes around?!

Getting to know Britt and the journey of her first internship

Hello I am Britt Hoofwijk, a third year occupational therapy student, studying in the Netherlands at the university of Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in Heerlen. I have just started my first ever internship this year, which is partly located at an elementary school and partly at an OT-clinic for kids. My tasks included that I stimulate the overall development of the children during their regular school duties. Using the classic child-OT in the clinic and with a project called ‘Beweeg me te leren’ on the elementary school. ‘Beweeg me te leren’ is translated to ‘Move me to learn’. This project was made by two former teachers of mine, Jolien van Houten and Rianne Jansens, as well as by the director of all primary schools: Ron Crutzen. And last but not least my supervisor Esther Dibbets – van de Bool who is also the owner of the clinic where I have my internship.

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KOEK

We are two occupational therapy students who are curious about prewriting skills of children in other countries and how other OT-students become acquainted with these during their education.
In this blog we write about a Dutch assessment which we were introduced to when we had to screen the prewriting skills of children. We will also share our experiences of this assessment with you. Finally we have some statements we would like to discuss about.

KOEK
We like to write a blog about a Dutch assessment the KOEK. The KOEK is an assessment developed by Hartingsveldt van MJ, Cup EHC, Corstens-Mignot MAAMG (2006). The name KOEK stays for ‘The Short Observation Occupation Toddles’ and is developed for children in pre-school. The English version of the Koek is the SPOT (Screening Prewriting Skills Occupational Therapy) The spot has been developed for: 5 and 6 year old children with mild fine motor problems or 5 and 6 year old children showing even milder problems or children that could not be diagnosed with DCD.

The SPOT aims in offering a guideline for observing fine motor skills in preschoolers. The SPOT is a tool for observation with the emphasis on quality of the performance. It has been developed to be used by occupational therapists to assess whether a preschooler has reached an acceptable level of writing readiness. The SPOT can be used to evaluate fine motor problems in preschoolers as well ( Hartingsveldt, 2006). For the SPOT is no special training needed but a profound study of the manual is necessary. The assessment can be done in 30 minutes.
Components SPOT:

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