Back to News 
MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (February 21, 2018) —Milligan College’s occupational therapy program will present a research symposium on Monday, Feb. 26, 4-7 p.m. at the college’s Thompson Center located on Emmanuel Hill. The conference is free and open to the public. Two free contact hours are available for OT professionals who attend.
The conference will feature a number of OT student research projects including the impact of running for children with sensory needs, workstation ergonomics, movement in the classroom and the impact of yoga on emotional intelligence.
Students Cody Forbes and Dylan Leitnaker will present about a summer camp they developed last year for kids with sensory impairments called “Happy Feet: An Inclusive Cross-Country Camp for Young People,” held at Elizabethton High School.
“Our goals for the kids, most of whom were on the autism spectrum, were to provide an introduction to cross country, help them engage in physical activity, address sensory needs through running, and also help them meet other kids their age with similar conditions,” said Leitnaker. “Our hope was that ‘Happy Feet’ would light a fire in them, showing both the children and their parents the potential value of the sport.”
Eden Greene will discuss how she used her OT knowledge to help a population of sexually exploited women in Louisville, Kentucky, during an internship experience at Scarlet Hope last summer. She created an occupational therapy-based curriculum to help them establish goals, as well as communication and coping skills.
“This population is incredibly underserved and essentially not served at all by occupational therapists” said Greene. “I wanted to bridge that gap and pave the way for occupational therapists and our profession as a whole.”
Milligan’s master’s level occupational therapy program prepares therapists to address the physical, psychological and cognitive aspects of a person’s well-being through engagement in activity in all of their environments. Learn more at www.milligan.edu/msot.