Dr. Ashlea Cardin and her students conduct research to help babies in intensive care, as well as the local Amish population.

Dr. Ashlea Cardin came into the world as an infant with many bone and joint abnormalities.

This meant surgeries, therapies and rehab in her childhood.

While she received high-quality care, it was not geared toward kids or families.

“My therapy looked very much like a younger version of adult therapy,” said Cardin, associate professor of occupational therapy. “I loved my therapists, but my therapy wasn’t fun.”

Her parents also lacked information to help her at home. This caused them to see her as fragile, afraid of what she could and could not do.

“They didn’t have that person or coach who said, ‘It’s OK she does cartwheels or push-ups or goes across the monkey bars. Her movements are going to look a little bit different. Here’s how we protect her body. Here’s how we adapt,’” Cardin said.

Those experiences — both positive and negative — led her to pursue a career in health care, as a pediatric occupational therapist.

Two decades in a hospital before coming to MSU

For more than two decades, Cardin worked in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, or NICU, at Mercy Hospital in Springfield.

She is a board-certified pediatric OT and a certified neonatal therapist.

“I knew I wanted to be in a position where I could help parents be less anxious,” Cardin said. “And in the NICU, parents are so fearful. It’s an alien world.”

In 2013, while working at Mercy and pursuing a Doctor of Occupational Therapy degree from St. Catherine University in Minnesota, she got a call that would lead her to academia. A friend told her MSU was starting an occupational therapy program and asked if she had interest in a faculty position.

She applied, and the rest is history. She has been a faculty member since 2014, helping get the program off the ground and growing it.

Her research helps improve people’s quality of life

In her role as professor, Cardin’s research explores how people’s daily occupations influence their health and well-being.

In occupational therapy, “occupations” are the daily activities people need to do, want to do or must do. When they cannot engage in these activities, it affects their health and quality of life.

“I study those extraordinarily ordinary moments people may not think about on a day-to-day basis — until they can’t do them, or they’re kept from doing them due to a barrier,” Cardin said.

Barriers may be caused by things like traumatic accidents, diseases and developmental delays.

Cardin dives deeper into two areas that affect different populations:

• Occupational deprivation – People who are restricted from activities for reasons beyond their control.
• Occupational injustice – People who are denied the right to engage in activities.

Cardin has published papers in several peer-reviewed health-related journals.

Studying how babies in the NICU can eat what they need

The main populations she works with are babies in the NICU and their families. This is a complex environment, where “parenting is so disrupted and parents share responsibilities with strangers,” Cardin said.

Two of her most recent studies focused on feeding.

“Feeding is huge,” Cardin said. “A baby’s ability to eat what he or she needs and grow in an appropriate way is the ticket to get out of the NICU.”

Cardin and her team, which included her occupational therapy students, have conducted research for more than five years.

Two studies were published in the Journal of Neonatal Nursing in 2023.

Providing free services to the Amish community

About 18 years ago, Cardin’s work in the NICU connected her with the local Old Order Amish community.

“The NICU’s a very difficult place to be for any non-Amish family, but for the Amish, that chasm is huge,” she said. “They live like it’s the 1850s and the NICU operates like it’s 2050. How do you find the middle ground between 200 years of differences? My heart broke for them, and I wanted to be a voice if they needed that.”

Over the years, Cardin has built trust with the Amish community in Seymour, Missouri. She provides pro bono therapy services in homes and through the Amish Outreach Medical Clinic.

She and her students have also worked on research projects that revolve around the Amish.

“We want to ensure these Amish children are meeting their developmental milestones,” Cardin said. “We also want to give their families the knowledge they need to maximize their children’s development.”

In working with Amish and NICU families who face occupational deprivation or injustice, Cardin’s goal is simple. She wants to help them advocate for their children.

“As an OT, I can better contribute to my client’s healing and wellness if I can set families up to be their own agents of change,” Cardin said. “When medical professionals partner with families versus prescribing or dictating to them a plan of care, the impact is immeasurable.”