Dana Katz Murphy, Clinical Service Manager & Registered Occupational Therapist

Dana is a Paediatric Occupational Therapist with 20+ years experience who has a special interest and expertise in sensory integration. She is a qualified Ayres Sensory Integration Practitioner, having completed the Ayres Sensory Integration Training, which is a research based, accredited and internationally recognised qualification in sensory integration. Dana is currently one of the very few occupational therapists in Ireland who are trained evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration (EASI) to provide a valid and reliable set of tests for assessing key sensory integration functions that underlie learning, behavior, and participation.

Dana graduated as an occupational therapist from the University of Cape Town, Medical school in December 1998. She graduated with distinction, joint first in her class. Dana is a CORU registered paediatric occupational therapist who has worked in paediatric private practice, consulting in mainstream and supported schools, both Private and State, for 21+ years.

Dana strongly believes in inclusion and early intervention and a model of therapeutic support that is grounded in sound developmental principles and takes the child and family, their intrinsic motivation, occupations, and environment into account. She is passionate about blending early intervention and sensory integration to maximise children’s developmental potential in the home, school and play environments.

Dana’s professional interests, include Sensory Integration, Animal Assisted Intervention, The Impact of Early Trauma on Development and Learning and Interactive Metronome. Dana is also a registered Interactive Metronome service provider.

Dana’s cumulative experience in the fields of paediatric practice, education, sensory integration and management, led her to start an inclusive preschool in 2016. The school supports all children, including children with SPD, ASD, AD/HD, behaviour and communication difficulties and developmental delays. She believes that children learn best when regulated and motivated by their peers and this forms the basis of the inclusive model of teaching that she developed for her pre-school.

Dana is also a part of the team of international testers who have been involved in the collection of normative data for the development of the new Evaluation in Ayres Sensory Integration (EASI) assessment.

Dana is on the Board for the South African Institute for Sensory Integration (SAISI) and in this capacity, she has lectured to and mentored graduate students in sensory integration since 2014. She holds the Ethics and Workshop Development portfolios for SAISI. Until moving to Ireland to join Sensational Kids in 2021, Dana was part of the National Ethical Committee for the Occupational Therapy Association of South Africa (OTASA) for 12 years.

Dana is also involved in animal assisted intervention and works along side her beautiful registered therapy dog, Lexi.

 

Professional Qualifications

B.Sc. Occupational Therapy Degree awarded with Distinction, University of Cape Town, Faculty of Medicine, 1995 – 1998

Ayres Sensory Integration Practitioner SAISI

 

Memberships

  • AOTI member (Association of Occupational Therapists in Ireland)
  • CORU (organisation for regulating health and social care professionals in Ireland)
  • World Federation of Occupational Therapists
  • The Occupational Therapy Association of South Africa
  • The South African Institute for Sensory Integration
  • Pets as Therapy

 

Awards

Certificate of Excellence for Ongoing Service and Passion to the Profession, Western Cape Paediatric
Practitioners Group, 2013

 

Continuous Professional Development Courses Completed

  • ADOS 2 Clinical Training for Clinicians, Run by Trinity College Dublin, Presented by Professor Louise Gallagher, Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2022)