Our Individualized Occupational Therapy Approach and Multidisciplinary Services

What Is Occupational Therapy and How Can it Help My Child?

Occupational Therapy: Promoting Participation in Occupation – Infographic created by Susan Bazyk, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA (2022). For children as well as adults, occupational therapy focuses on helping children to benefit from Education, Activities of Daily Living, Social Participation, Play, Leisure, Sleep/Rest, Health Management, and Work by assessing what difficulties are getting in the way and/or adapting the environment to the child’s needs. To learn more, go to Every Moment Counts.

On The Other Hand Therapy: Our Approach

We treat each child as a unique person, not as someone in need of “fixing.” After determining what struggles are interfering with the child’s success in school, at home, or in extracurricular activities, we create an individually-tailored OT treatment program to address their challenges while incorporating their strengths and interests, with the goal of improving function, joy, and participation. We have experience in a wide variety of evidence-based occupational therapy interventions, strategies, and techniques.

We Offer Multidisciplinary Services

Occupational Therapy is much more than helping children with their handwriting and fine motor skills! Here are other areas that we address during OT sessions:

Emotional and sensory regulation, using curricula such as social stories, The Zones of Regulation, and materials from Socialthinking such as You Are a Social Detective.
Emotional resilience and self control, via mindfulness, meditation, and yoga, using curricula such as Blissful Kids and Kids Yoga Stories.

Executive function skills to foster the abilities to pay attention, transition between activities, retain information, follow directions, and think flexibly. We use a variety of growth mindset resources such as Big Life Journal and strategies for improved organization such as Dr. Peg Dawson’s Smart But Scattered.

Fine motor skills, such as hand and finger strengthening to enable independence in activities of daily living training (e.g. opening snack packaging, tying shoe laces, managing backpacks and materials, manipulating writing and drawing tools, etc.).

Handwriting from a developmental perspective, using curricula such as Fundations, Learning Without Tears, Zaner-Bloser, etc. When students struggle with handwriting, we analyze the underlying difficulties and create a plan for improvement. By 2nd/3rd grade, if a student hasn’t reached automaticity in handwriting, we move them towards learning touch typing.
Keyboarding (touch typing), focusing on improving endurance, legibility, letter formation, and speed when copying and composing content.

Sensory motor development to improve body awareness, core and postural control, and motor planning using movement programs for children with ADHD, anxiety, learning difficulties, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and/or sensory processing and sensory regulation challenges, including: Bal-A-Vis-X; Minds in Motion; Ready Bodies, Learning Minds; Rhythmic Movement Training; S’Cool Moves.

Sensory processing, listening, and communication via sound based intervention programs such as Therapeutic Listening to improve the students’ abilities to process and respond to what they hear.
Visual motor and visual perceptual skills are often overlooked in the classroom because we cannot see how children make sense of their world visually. Many handwriting difficulties actually stem from visual processing challenges. We work to improve these systems, thereby enabling a child to make sense of what s/he is seeing.

If you would like to learn about working with us, kindly visit the contact page.

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