My name is Jason Gonzales and I have been an occupational therapist for 16 years. I graduated from The Ohio State University in 2001, and have worked in the school setting ever since. I have worked in over 12 school districts, a private school, and a private clinic. I have lived in Illinois, New York, Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, and now New Jersey with my wife and two kids. I am the CEO of DoubleTimeDocs, which is a company that allows OT’s to write evaluations in a fraction of the time by answering questions.
From my experience, working with students from preschool to high school, my most successful intervention to improve fine motor skills, is teaching students how to draw. I have found that drawing increases motivation, confidence, and improves handwriting in most of the students that I have worked with regardless of age, diagnosis, or disability.
In the last two years, an increase of requests from general education teachers for me to demonstrate a 30-minute lesson on writing and drawing has prompted me to start this blog. The teachers have seen fast results and at times instantly during my lesson. By doing a quick lesson in class, it gives me the opportunity to screen students, provide suggestions and recommendations to the teacher, and ultimately the students love the activity and the change of routine. In the eyes of the students, the OTs are the fun “teacher”.
DrawOT 