OT faculty awarded grant to assist children with cerebral palsy

Oct. 4, 2022 —  DENTON — Two Texas Woman’s occupational therapy faculty members received a $20,000 grant from United Cerebral Palsy to fund early diagnosis and treatment of cerebral palsy in children.

Assistant professors Heather Roberts, PhD, and Angela Shierk, PhD, will use the grant to train and work with early childhood intervention therapists to implement Therapy Together, a caregiver-led intervention for young children that have unilateral cerebral palsy or are at risk for developing unilateral cerebral palsy.

“I think what I am most excited about is being able to provide our youngest children from the state of Texas an opportunity to receive therapy that will improve their hand and arm function and participation in their home environment,” Roberts said. “And, also to be able to train the Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) therapists.”

“The time between identifying a research intervention that works and seeing the intervention used by clinicians often takes 10-15 years or more,” Shierk added. “We hope that conducting an implementation study will help close that gap by providing training for therapists, which will open access to movement therapy for young children with unilateral cerebral palsy in the state of Texas.”