With over 40 years experience, Marga Grey is a pioneer in occupational therapy.
Read more below to learn about:
Marga’s experience as an OT,
how CoordiKids makes home therapy exercises fun,
the CoordiKids activities therapists can prescribe on Theratrak, and
the future of OT.
Why did you want to become an OT?
I always wanted to help people to be their best selves.
Can you tell us a bit more about your OT journey?
I studied in Stellenbosch, South Africa amongst the most beautiful mountains, vineyards and close the ocean and Table Mountain. I did my Maters in research on the early developmental needs of children aged 1 – 3 years at University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
What’s your mission at Coordikids?
More children than ever are being recognized as having developmental delays, learning disabilities, sensory integration dysfunction and hyperactivity disorders. Having access to high-quality educational materials and treatment models is critical in helping these children thrive.
CoordiKids is guided by our Mission: To enable children to overcome developmental and learning challenges through affordable therapy courses at home, available online, anywhere, any time.
Our Mission consists of three principle conditions:
Accessibility: Parents and teachers need to maximise their efficiency and time management, therefore, CoordiKids is accessible, with no preparation, online, any time and anywhere.
Quality: CoordiKids stays in tune with research and best practice guidelines to deliver the best service and interventions, backed by scientific research, experience, and data-driven results.
Affordability: CoordiKids offers a variety of courses, individualized options and support via Telehealth at low cost to ensure that every child, parent and/or teacher can access these essential resources.
What do you love about your job?
Rewarding: to see the positive changes in children and families.
Rewarding: to see the smiles and excitement when a child reached a new goal.
Exciting: to work with a wide range of diagnoses, problems, families and children.
Interesting: never in my over-40 years of being a paedatric OT have I seen two children or two families that are the same.
Interesting: to keep up with research, novel strategies and innovative ideas to support children and their families.
Creative: Every session, every interaction with a client is like a new experience because all are individuals with individual and specific needs. Creativity is the one skills which stretches my mind and which energizes me to accomplish more.
What’s the hardest thing about being an OT?
Trying to support and to help without the essential cooperation and insight into issues from parents and / or other family members. It is very hard to see a child suffering because of this.
Can you share a recent success with us?
To me, most clients are success stories – I do not easily give up on them! When I am not sure of progress, of the value I can add, I am keen to tap the brains of other professionals and often encourage parents to seek an assessment from other allied health services.
The biggest thrill for me is when tired parents (tired from worry because they do not know how to help the child or what is wrong with the child) find answers after a telehealth assessment, embark on CoordiKids and after a few weeks report back, like Michelle, Tara, and Trudie did: ‘Wow! Changes observed in 2 weeks! Never thought this was possible.’ Then I know I have helped another child through CoordiKids with effective, affordable and easily accessible options to thrive!
What other tech tools have helped support you in your work?
We have trialled Point Motion markerless movement tracking for many months. A fantastic tool to assess and to track progress, but parents find it difficult to use and we are considering taking it off our courses again.
Neurofit offers games to develop memory and executive function skills, and we are researching the best ways to use it to complement CoordiKids.
There are many digital games which I use in telehealth sessions, however, I am always considering the client goals and benefits.
The importance of manually handling objects such as puzzle pieces is always in my mind, as well as the importance of writing and drawing as these are different tasks which use different skills than completing puzzles, writing or drawing on a screen.
What are some of the most common home exercises you prescribe in home programs?
CoordiKids offers 168 exercise videos. The course is developmentally sequenced which is part of the huge success we see in clients using it consistently over a year.
The course commences with core muscle strength, vestibular-proprioceptive and touch input, and evolves to balance, and then the very important bilateral integration and sequencing tasks.
CoordiKids also includes mouth-tongue exercises, eye movement exercises and hand-finger exercises. All sets of exercises ends with stretches and deep breathing to leave the child relaxed and regulated.
One of the exciting outcomes of regular use of CoordiKids is improved self-regulation!
Towards the end of the course the child participates in complex movement sequences to build working memory.
I have never randomly chosen exercises – it has always been according to the neurodevelopmental stages – which is why I have always seen great positive outcomes in therapy. These exercises should also relate to functional tasks to be true to occupational therapy and to ensure positive functional outcomes.
The CoordiKids exercises on the Theratrak app are the most common exercises I prescribe.
All the CoordiKids activities now available on Theratrak are premade instructional video for foundational sensory motor skills exercises:
Eye movements
Gross motor
Fine motor
Oral motor
What do you hope therapists and their participants get from the CoordiKids Bonus Activities?
I trust they will see how easy it is to use, in therapy sessions, for homework and in telehealth sessions.
What do you think the future of OT will be like?
Exciting, offering many opportunities to be creative and innovative.
I doubt if we’ll ever go back to not using telehealth, supportive technology and new innovations to improve therapy, to make it affordable and to leave parents and therapists with more time to serve more people.
I’m a member of a technology group and it is amazing and encouraging to see how the health industry is changing.
And it’s encouraging to see how health’s focus is changing from ‘making someone healthy again’ to ‘preventing illness and staying healthy’.
