Soul to Soul Yoga LLC

September is Deaf Awareness Month: a time to celebrate Deaf culture, sign languages, and the contributions of the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

This month, we're celebrating our own Cheryl Albright, OTR/L, C-IAYT. Cheryl has hearing loss and is fluent in ASL (not an interpreter).

If you or someone you love is Deaf or hard-of-hearing, tell us in the comments. We'd love to celebrate you too! 🤟

This quote comes from Cheryl Albright, OTR/L, C-IAYT, from her upcoming book, "Yoga-Informed Practice for Intellectual and Developmental Disability: A Guide for Occupational Therapists and Allied Health Professionals." It's pulled from Chapter 3: Yoga-Informed Practice in IDD Settings, the sample chapter submitted to Routledge. Stay tuned for more updates as the writing process continues! The book is a culmination of years of clinical work and research at the intersection of OT, yoga therapy, and IDD. We are excited to see this work take shape 📖✍🏼

In honor of Global Yoga Therapy Day on August 14, 2026, Cheryl Albright, OTR/L, C-IAYT, shared both of her posters with the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT).

Her first poster was presented at the World Sclerosis Conference in Athens, Greece, where she introduced attendees to Scleroderma. This chronic autoimmune condition causes the body to overproduce collagen, leading to hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissues, and in many cases, internal organ involvement.

Building on this foundation, Cheryl's second poster turns from understanding the disease to treating one of its most challenging complications.

At the National Scleroderma Foundation Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, Cheryl presented her research on using yoga therapy to support digestive health in patients with Scleroderma. This complementary, movement-based approach offers relief from the gastrointestinal symptoms that so often accompany this condition.

Join Cheryl Albright, OTR/L, C-IAYT at the Florida Occupational Therapy Association 2026 Annual Conference!

🗓Nov 7-8
📍University of St. Augustine

She will be presenting "The Forgotten Family Member: Recognizing and Supporting Siblings of Individuals with Disabilities in Occupational Therapy Practice." We hope to see you there!

Join Cheryl Albright, OTR/L, C-IAYT for Yoga-Informed Practice in IDD Settings

🗓️ Wed, Aug 26
⏰ 2:00-3:00 PM EST

Learn how yoga-informed approaches can support practice in intellectual and developmental disability settings. You won’t want to miss this insightful session!

🔗 Register now: https://www.aaidd.org/education/webinars/register-for-upcoming-webinars/2026/08/26/default-calendar/yoga-informed-practice-in-idd-settings

What does trauma-informed occupational therapy actually look like in practice?

A 2019 study out of Dalhousie University set out to answer this simple but under-researched question. Instead of testing a new intervention, researchers Fraser, MacKenzie & Versnel interviewed nine experienced OTs treating children and teens with complex trauma, then mapped their responses onto the WHO's ICF framework to find recurring patterns in how they work.

Three themes stood out:
- Caregivers aren't optional and family involvement was core to every therapist's approach.
- Start with the body. Bottom-up, sensory/nervous system regulation came before behavior or cognitive work.
- Therapists need support too, with advanced training and connection to peers being essential.

Complex trauma isn’t going anywhere. Neither is OT’s role in treating it.

Reference:
Fraser, K., MacKenzie, D., & Versnel, J. (2019). What Is the Current State of Occupational Therapy Practice With Children and Adolescents With Complex Trauma? Occupational Therapy in Mental Health, 35(4), 317–338.

In a Special Sib blog post, Cheryl Albright, OTR/L, C-IAYT touches on how momentum and meaning aren't the same thing.

It's easy to mix them up. When we're moving fast on something, it feels important. And when we stop, it's tempting to read that as proof the thing didn't matter after all.

But they're not the same measurement. Momentum is how fast something is moving right now. Meaning is why it mattered to begin with. You can lose all your momentum and the meaning stays completely intact.

A goal doesn't stop being worth having because this isn't the month you're making progress on it. The work you already did doesn't get erased just because the next part hasn't happened yet.

So if something you care about has stalled, that's not a verdict. It's just where the momentum happens to be standing right now. The meaning is still exactly where you left it.

Read the full post from August 2, 2026 at www.specialsib.com

Saturday, August 15th is National Relaxation Day! Your official excuse to slow down. No to-do list. No notifications. Just slow mornings and quiet moments. What's on your unwind list? 👇