What looks like “bad” behavior might be learning in action.
Guest: Mick Olds, OTR/L
Earn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PD
In this episode of The Gestalt Get-Together, host Corinne Zmoos, MS, CCC-SLP, talks with Mick Olds, OTR/L, known as “The Occuplaytional Therapist,” about schema play and the ways autistic children and gestalt language processors (GLPs) may use repeated patterns of play to learn about their world.
Corinne and Mick discuss eight common play schemas: connecting, orienting, transporting, trajectory, positioning, enveloping, enclosing, and rotation. Through examples, Mick explains how behaviors that adults may view as challenging or “bad” can actually reflect a child experimenting with objects, cause and effect, movement, space, and their environment.
The episode also looks at what these patterns can tell us about a child’s interests and development, and how recognizing schema play can help clinicians better understand and support a child’s play rather than redirecting it. Corinne and Mick connect these early play experiences to the development of skills children can build on throughout everyday life.
About the Guest: Mick Olds, OTR/L, also known as “The Occuplaytional Therapist,” is an occupational therapist who shares every day with thousands of people online—parents, teachers, fellow professionals, and adults healing their own childhoods—about the power of play in children's lives. Mick has worked with kids in all kinds of settings: from rural Oklahoma, to an Air Force base in England, to their current home in Geelong, Victoria. Their experiences across different countries and systems give them a unique perspective on how healthcare and education shape childhood.
Show Notes:
Contact Corinne Zmoos: Instagram, LinkedIn, Linktree
Contact Mick Olds: Instagram, The Occuplaytional Therapist
What are play schemas and why do they matter?
Schematic Driven Pedagogy (SDP): The Potential Impact for Autistic Children
Piaget’s Schema & Learning Theory: 3 Fascinating Experiments