WSSU Grad Answers Calling to Serve Special Needs Students
Mooneyham works with a client.
Sometimes you don’t end up where you planned when you started out. That’s what happened to Maura Mooneyham.
Mooneyham grew up outside of Washington, D.C. in Bethesda, Md. She went to North Carolina State University as an undergraduate to attend the College of Textiles, but she ended up graduating in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a minor in Women's Gender Studies, as well as a new career path.
“I have sewn since I was very young, but after my first year, I realized I liked it more as a hobby rather than as a profession,” Mooneyham said.
About the same time she had that revelation, she started working part time in the Raleigh/Durham area with children and young adults who had developmental disabilities. Then, a family friend talked to her about occupational therapy.
“I absolutely loved my part-time job and knew this was a career path I wanted to pursue,” she recalled. “I thought occupational therapy would be a perfect fit for me because it combined my love for crafts and working with individuals with special needs.”
Mooneyham enrolled as a graduate student in the Occupational Therapy program at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) in 2009. She said the program gave her the tools she needed to excel.
“WSSU gave me the foundational knowledge for the field and an understanding of the occupation-based practice,” said Mooneyham. “The program also gave me a deeper respect for the importance and responsibility of the occupational therapist to get involved in the field on a national, local, and community level.”
She became particularly active in the field of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), a neurological condition that disrupts the daily lives of many children and adults. “I was finding that several of the individuals I was working with had sensory difficulties secondary to their disorder and I wanted to know more about it.”
Mooneyham accompanied one of her co-workers who was an occupational therapist, to a sensory integration clinic and was able to observe all of his sessions. That experience led her to working on a project with Carol Kranowitz, the author of The Out of Sync Child and several other books on Sensory Processing Disorder.
Kranowitz connected Mooneyham with national renowned occupational therapy scholar Dr. Lucy Jane Miller. Dr. Miller is the director of the SPD Foundation/STAR Center, the premier clinic for research-based treatment of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and other sensory challenges in children, adolescents and adults in Denver, Col. Dr. Miller invited Mooneyham out to Colorado for an intensive research internship during her summer break in 2010.
“I was responsible for administering and assisting to refine the Sensory Processing Scales Assessment and Inventory (Research Edition being developed by Dr. Miller and Dr. Sarah A. Schoen), administering and scoring the scale, and training other clinicians and therapists to use the SP Scales,” Mooneyham explained.
Her dream job? You bet. “Yes, this is my dream job and for several reasons,” confides Mooneyham. “This is an area of practice that I am especially passionate about and to work at one of the premier clinics for research-based treatment of Sensory Processing Disorder is an amazing opportunity and learning experience.”
She said one of her favorite aspects about being a service provider in the SPD organization was being part of a team that placed such high a value on collaboration between families and therapists, empowering families through education, and providing state of the art services based on current research.
As far as the future is concerned, Mooneyham is focusing on passing the national licensing board examination, settling into her new home with her husband Tyler in Denver and, she added “hopefully going to a few Broncos games next year!”
Sounds like a plan.
