This webinar – the fourth in the LCRN’s series on Occupational Therapy and MCH: An Emerging Partnership to Improve Early Family Experiences and Life Course Health Development – features Debra A. Rybski, PhD, MSHCA, OTRL.

Dr. Rybski is Associate Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at Saint Louis University. Dr. Rybski’s clinical background in occupational therapy and maternal and child health has guided her work with children and families who experience poverty and homelessness. Her work in community developmental surveillance and screening has examined young children’s self-regulation/social skills critical for child social participation and learning in relation to sensory processing, mother sense of competence and environmental determinants of family homelessness. Dr. Rybski’s work also examines practice that enhances child resilience capacities and positively impacts early childhood health trajectories through family occupational therapy in community health, early intervention and early childhood education. This webinar presents research from Dr. Rybski’s work with families who experience homelessness, examining the transactional negative impact of eco-toxic stress on early development whereby optimal sensory processing necessary for self-regulation and subsequent early child social-emotional learning and occupational participation is diminished in children who experience poverty and/or homelessness.

Webinar recording available here