Pediatric Occupational Therapist - Alesia DiSano

Alesia DiSano, is a Senior Pediatric Occupational Therapist with 19 years of experience in the field. We met through a mutual contact, Leah Jayanetti, a PT that we also had on the podcast earlier this year. In Leah's words… “Alesia is a renowned occupational therapist with a wealth of experience in early intervention, inpatient and outpatient therapy and has worked in the Sensory Integration and Constraint-Induced Movement therapy (CIMT) worlds for a long time. She is the best OT I know and her patients thrive under her care.” It was such pleasure to speak to her and we hope you enjoy listening to our chat!

Quick Call Outs from the Episode:

• More about Sensory Integration - it relates to sensory processing and the experience we start to have first in utero and then as babies, with our environment. Kids with various diagnoses can benefit from support with sensory processes through Sensory Integration and it can be very unique and specific to the child.
• More about Constraint-Induced Movement therapy (CIMT) - it involves casting an unaffected arm with a removable cast to facilitate the use of the affected arm by taking a way competing information, which can lead to positive gains.
• Preparing to Graduate - Trust your intuition/ and advocate for your child
  • Think about the environment you are going home to (this keeps coming up across all of our episodes)
  • Think about people you can reach out to for support whether in family or friends
• NICU Grad Guide - You’re finally home, now what?
  • It’s going to take time to get into a routine - that's ok!
  • Skin-to-skin and babywearing can help you become familiar with your baby's cues so you know when they are overstimulated. In addition to that, the baby getting to experience this form of movement as you walk around and go about your daily tasks can be  extremely beneficial to them and the development their vestibular sense. 
  • Firm, deep pressure is calming vs. light tickling touches which can be irritating 
  • Early Intervention - You don’t have to start with everything all at once, you can kick off early intervention with occupation therapy first and then build your child’s support team a little bit at a time from there.
    • Early on, OT can cover milestones across multiple disciplines from speech to physical therapy, so it’s a great place to start for guidance and support
• Resources and products Alesia recommends
  • Your Baby’s Bottle Feeding Aversion, by Rowena Bennett
  • Motherly podcast
  • Baby wearing - ErgoBaby and Baby K'tan (the one Alesia mentioned but didn’t have the name.) Ultimately, find what is comfortable for you, and explore the systems that are out there. These are just two that we know can be helpful.

You can connect with Alesia via email - adisano@lifespan.org!

Let's keep in touch!
 You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, an

A special thanks to the Prolacta Bioscience Foundation for supporting the NICU Alumni podcast!

You can also support our mission and help create brighter futures for babies that have graduated from the NICU (who we affectionately refer to as NICU Alumni) and their families by donating here.

The purpose of this podcast is for entertainment only and should not be viewed as medical advice.