Junior Allison Malone is thriving in Huntington High School’s science research program course. She has developed a project titled “The Impact of Occupational Therapy Interventions on Children with Disabilities.” The teenager is enjoying the research experience.
The project seeks to determine the effect occupational therapy interventions have on the attitudes and social skills of children with disabilities.
Ms. Malone is utilizing “The Ultimate Guide to Play, Language and Friendship,” which is a peer-mediated intervention for 6-11 intervention for 6-11 year old children with autism spectrum disorders.
“I came up with this project because I wanted to focus on occupational therapy since I’ve been interested in working in that field for a while now and wanted to see how I felt about it,” Ms. Malone said.
The junior is especially excited to see how her research plays out and to watch the progress made over time when the children are exposed to the intervention. Ms. Malone is hoping to see the hard work she is putting into the project pay off.
The teenager is open to tweaking the intervention in order to produce the desired beneficial results for kids. “I am curious to see how I could approach this whole thing differently to receive an effect.” Ms. Malone said.