Occupational Therapy
A child’s occupation is to play, learn, gain independence with their self-care activities, socialize appropriately with peers, be successful in school, self-regulate and have healthy self-esteem. Pediatric Occupational Therapists have experience identifying developmental delays that impact performing these age-appropriate activities.
Utilizing play therapy, our pediatric occupational therapists work to improve (select the skill to open a box with the definition):
Emotional regulation is the ability to recognize, manage, and respond to your emotions.
Occupational therapists help to develop emotional regulation skills by utilizing a combination of
different tools and strategies to see what works best for your child.
Fine motor skills involve small muscles working with the brain and nervous system
to control movements in areas such as the hands, fingers, lips, tongue and eyes.
Developing fine motor skills helps children do things like eating, writing, playing with toys,
and daily care activities like dressing, toileting, and bathing. Occupational therapists use a wide range of
activities, tools, and adaptations to improve strength, coordination, dexterity, hand eye coordination.
This is the coordination between visual perception and motor skills. This skill is required to recognize and copy shapes,
handwriting, cutting, The goal of visual-motor therapy is to enhance an individual's ability to process and use visual
information effectively in motor tasks. This can lead to improved academic performance, better handwriting, increased self-confidence.
This function refers to a set of mental processes and cognitive skills that are essential for self-regulation,
goal setting, planning, and problem-solving. Executive functioning plays a crucial role in various aspects of daily
life, including academics, social interactions, and overall adaptive functioning. OT’s can help with executive
functioning by addressing impulsive behaviors and distractibility, planning and organization, motivation, adapt to
changing situations, emotional regulation, and self awareness.
Our OT’s develop a comprehensive approach to address and manage issues
related to bowel and bladder control in children. These programs are typically designed for children who
experience problems such as bedwetting, daytime wetting, constipation, and other bowel and bladder issues.
The goal of a pediatric bowel and bladder program is to improve the child's quality of life, minimize discomfort
and embarrassment, and promote healthy bowel and bladder function.
Our feeding programs include infant feeding, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, picky eaters, sensory based feeding
difficulties, oral motor skill development, feeding difficulties related to tongue tie.
Sensory processing refers to the way our nervous system receives, interprets, and responds to sensory
information from the environment and our own bodies. Our senses include sight, hearing, taste, touch,
smell, and proprioception awareness of the position and movement of our body parts and vestibular sense
(our sense of balance and spatial orientation. Sensory processing is crucial for our everyday functioning
because it helps us make sense of the world around us and adapt to different situations. Sensory processing
is essential for daily activities, learning, social interactions, and emotional regulation. Occupational therapists
develop strategies and interventions to help children better manage their sensory experiences and improve their overall quality of life.
These are a set of tasks and activities that children typically perform on a daily basis to take care of
themselves and maintain their basic well-being. This includes dressing, bathing, eating, movement, and toileting.
OT’s can assess the underlying concern that is influencing their ability to perform these tasks and develop
treatment strategies to help children succeed and gain independence.
Physical Therapy
Our pediatric physical therapists address a child’s ability to achieve their functional mobility, address musculoskeletal and neuromotor concerns, and assist with adaptive equipment . Utilizing play based therapy, PT’s help children improve their range of motion, strength, flexibility, balance, activity tolerance and movement patterns in order to help them be successful.
These are the skills your child uses to get around their environment such as rolling, crawling, and walking.
Gross motor skills also involve being able to coordinate movements and maintain our balance to participate in sitting activities,
avoiding falls and being safe in our environment. Children need a strong foundation of balance, stability, and coordination
to complete tasks like reaching, moving on uneven surfaces, throwing, and participating in things like playing games and playing at the playground.
Therapists are trained to rehabilitate musculoskeletal injuries and post injury conditions
using strengthening, mobility, and stabilities activities. Frequently seen injuries include
brachial plexus injury, fractures, hand and wrist injuries from falls, knee pain during growing, foot pain, back pain.
Physical Therapists frequently use tools to assist patients with participating in activities important to their
daily routine. These might include splinting, bracing, or use of technology to best serve our patients.
Our PT’s develop a comprehensive approach to address and manage issues related to
bowel and bladder control in children. These programs are typically designed for children who experience
problems such as bedwetting, daytime wetting, constipation, and other bowel and bladder issues. The goal
of a pediatric bowel and bladder program is to improve the child's quality of life, minimize discomfort and
embarrassment, and promote healthy bowel and bladder function.
Speech Therapy
Speech therapy addresses the child’s ability to develop the speech and language skills necessary for effective communication.
Through play therapy, Our Speech and Language Therapists help children learn to put thoughts into words and sentences, to arrange sounds, practice listening skills, and learn to follow directions. Children learn to use language to interact with others and communicate with the help of signs, pictures, and specialized devices.
Receptive language refers to how your child understands language. Expressive language refers to how your child uses words to express himself/herself.
Articulation (pronunciation and talking) is the ability to physically move the tongue, lips, teeth and
jaw to produce sequences of speech sounds, which make up words and sentences.
Phonological awareness lets kids recognize and work with the sounds of spoken language. In preschoolers,
it means being able to pick out rhyming words and count the number of syllables in a name. It also involves
noticing alliteration (how sounds repeat themselves).
Fluency refers to the smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllables, words, and phrases are said when talking.
It helps the child to speak terms like stuttering, stammering or cluttering fluently.
Language and literacy development are major domains of early childhood development.
They involve development of the skills used to communicate with others through languages (language development),
as well as the ability to read and write (literacy development).
Children with Auditory Processing Disorder have trouble hearing and interpreting the message whereas children with
Language Processing Disorder have trouble hearing and interpreting the message.
Social (pragmatic) communication allows an individual to use and understand verbal and non-verbal
communication that is appropriate for social interactions. It involves greetings, turn-taking, topic maintenance, and gestures.
Apraxia of speech (AOS)—also known as acquired apraxia of speech, verbal apraxia, or childhood
apraxia of speech (CAS) when diagnosed in children—is a speech sound disorder. Someone with AOS has
trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and consistently.