EVENT HAS ENDED – Toileting, Interoception & Nutrition: An Evidence-Based Approach for Promoting Toileting Success and Independence

This course has ended.

Most toileting programs have a strong behavioral influence emphasizing external means of reinforcement such as praise and rewards. This exclusive focus on external motivators fails to acknowledge the importance of internal factors that contribute to a person’s inner motivation needed for successful toileting.  This course will review the issues with the current trends in toileting approaches and present the latest research that emphasizes the need to address the underlying causes that often contribute to a variety of toileting issues. Focus during this course will be on how poor interoception and/or unhealthy eating habits underlie common toileting issues such as daytime accidents, nocturnal enuresis (nighttime bed wetting), stool withholding and constipation. An evidence-based approach for assessing and supporting the following toileting challenges in children and adults will be shared:

• Challenge 1: Urinary Issues
• Challenge 2: Stool Withholding, Constipation + Other Defecation Issues
• Challenge 3: A Combination of Stool + Urine Issues

The practical, evidence-based strategies shared during this course are easy to implement and are applicable in supporting learners of a variety of ages, backgrounds, diagnoses & learning styles.

Following this course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify and describe the intersections between interoceptive awareness and responsiveness and its positive contribution to Social Emotional curricula.
2. Compare and contrast models of social participation used in school settings and how these models may support or hinder the development of self-regulation based on interoceptive awareness and responsiveness.
3. Utilize structured observations for informal assessment of a students’ interoceptive state, and describe how a team based, interoception-informed approach to student behaviors can positively impact classroom participation.
4. Explore interventions for facilitating interoception to support students using a continuum of occupational therapy service delivery models, from school-wide population based, to embedded classroom, to individual interventions.