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NAVIGATION WR was created to support pediatric populations, focusing on children and adolescents with a wide variety of disabilities, such as Autism, ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Intellectual Disabilities, and more.

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This program can be used both in home and in the community. The purpose of NAVIGATION WR is to help children with disabilities and their families overcome stress in waiting rooms using sensory strategies. 

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Settings include: medical offices (doctor, dentist, ER, and eye doctor), educational settings (guidance office, classrooms), and the community (hair salon, restaurant, grocery stores)

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Population Needs: For individuals with Autism or Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) waiting rooms can be very overwhelming. Waiting rooms can be loud, unorganized, bright, and crowded. This impacts individual's with disabilities from maintaining an optimal level of arousal needed to succeed across a variety of settings. Waiting rooms can create stressful environments which may result in over-responsiveness to stimuli and a change in behavior or mood.

GOALS:
  • Improve the overall waiting room experience for both the patient, family and health professionals
  • Provide sensory-based activities and sensory integrative strategies to use as coping skills
  • Increase occupational performance amongst clients in the waiting room
  • Decrease stress and anxiety in order to improve the quality of care for patients in order to allow a complete and successful appointment
  • Create positive interactions and experiences
  • Promote stress management techniques
  • Provide alternatives to sedation and restraints in an emergency department setting

Population Needs

Getting Started:
  • ​The idea for this program was created based on observations made during a fieldwork experience at an  in-patient behavioral health setting. Observations included the stress and anxiety children and adolescents with disabilities faced when admitted to the emergency department prior to being transported to an in-patient behavioral health setting
  • Initially this program was designed to help children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) navigate Emergency Department waiting rooms
  • This program was created based on observations 
  • We expanded the population and setting to include Children and adolescents with disabilities and focused on waiting rooms in all settings (eg. medical offices, educational settings and the community)
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