It was my first time doing yoga. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking of its implications to teaching. I was busy minding my poses and breathing to even observe how ma’am Mia teaches us. Which brings us to learning number 1: When our client is in the initial stage of learning, his/her focus is on the task and other sensory input might be filtered out. Thus, we should be careful in giving additional sensory input (e.g. manual guidance) because it might cause sensory overload or it might be ignored. Manual guidance or additional instructions can be given but must be limited to those that are essential to the performance of the task or for correction of error. The learner must be given the chance to process on her/his own. Demonstrations were extremely helpful because it gives me (the learner) a gross idea of how the activity should be performed. It allows learners to plan his/her action before attempting it.

We also critic our video teaching a client how to do ACBT. Here we were trained to recognize areas of improvement in order to provide a better learning experience for our clients.

We also did role-playing. The activity stimulated us to think of how to handle different clients. It also serves as a review of different conditions, their manifestations and its implications to teaching. When the client can’t process a particular sensory cue (e.g. visual for person with VI) due to a sensory impairment, the remaining intact senses must be utilized. The environmental setup must facilitate learning. The importance of clear and concise verbal instructions was further emphasized especially in handling patients with cognitive impairments. We were taught that not all clients would be cooperative during therapy. Thus, it is important that a therapist is equipped with different strategies (e.g. behavioral management strategies for pediatric patient, providing a clear rationale) to increase the compliance of the client to the activity.