We offer a variety of therapy services in the school based setting. We take pride in what we do and focus is on your students access his/her education, regardless of their need. We work with the educational team just as much as the students, because we believe that therapy does not stop when our session is over for the day. We strive to provide the educational team with adaptations for the classroom so that skills can be carried over from therapy sessions. 

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OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

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Occupational Therapists (OT’s) are a vital part in children with physical and functional disabilities. Various assessments may be necessary by the OT to clearly assert where a child needs help. Some people believe that occupational therapy is just for adults, after all kids do not have occupations right?….well of course they do, their occupation is to play, learn, and grow up to take care of themselves. It is sometimes very hard for some children to do and learn every day things, like eating, dressing, and writing but, occupational therapists can come up with resourceful ways to help that child.

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As OT's working in the school system we are focused on supporting a child's overall ability to participate as successfully and fully as possible in the school environment.

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Children who might benefit from occupational therapy include:

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• Sensory Processing Disorders (SPD)

• Developmental Delays

• Mental Health/ Mental Retardation (MH/MR)

• Autism Spectrum

• Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD)

• Traumatic Brain or Spinal Cord Injuries

• Specific Learning Disabilities

• Cerebral Palsy

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Some things that the therapists may work on your child with:

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• Improving academic skills needed to complete classroom tasks. Examples include: handwriting, attention span and organization.

•  Addressing visual perceptual challenges that affect the student’s ability to complete school related tasks.  

•  Addressing fine and gross motor skills needed during class time and recess.  

•  Improving independence with basic self-help skills that are performed at school.

• Addressing difficulty regulating any of the five senses to improve educational performance. 

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This is just a partial list, our therapists will determine what is best for your child based on evaluations and assessments given and tailor the therapy to meet the child’s needs.

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SCHOOL READINESS

The goal of school readiness groups are to improve the students overall  fine motor and visual processing abilities.  It is the expectation that these skills will be carried over at the 1 st grade level. By providing this level of intervention and assisting with strategies provided directly in the classroom, the goal is to decrease the need for more intensive need for OT services. It is also the goal of providing this level of consultation to the teachers to help provide suggestions that they can then carry over daily in the classroom environment.

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• Some things that your student might work on are:

• Body scheme/ awareness

• Fine motor  Skills- helping a student learn how to hold a pencil with a functional grasp, cut with scissors

• Gross motor skills

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PHYSICAL THERAPY

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Physical Therapy is used for kids who have either injuries or musculoskeletal disorders. Therapists will help alleviate pain and help them resume daily activities. Physical therapy is designed to help the child regain strength and range of motion. It focuses on gross motor skills such as walking hiking, jumping and climbing stairs. For a child it involves milestones that have been missed or delayed for a number of reasons. 

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Physical therapists are specifically trained in how the body functions and moves, allowing them to help students develop gross motor skills, accessing their education as indepndently as possible.  

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Physical Therapy is used for various different disorders and issues, some of them may include but not limited to:

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• Orthopedic Disabilities

• Cerebral Palsy

• Developmental Delays

• Muscles Disorders or Diseases

• Acute Traumas

• Birth Defects (spina bifida)

• Some things a therapist might do with your child while in the physical therapy sessions include:

• Developmental activities- crawling, walking, running, jumping

• Weight bearing exercises to build strength around an injury

• Flexibility exercises to increase range of motion in certain muscles

• Adaptive play

• Water (aquatic) therapy

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The therapist may measure the child for flexibility and strength, analyze the child’s gait (the way they walk or run). Identify existing and potential problems, provide instructions for home exercise.

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Our therapists will customize the need for special equipment and treatment plans based on your child’s assessments and evaluations.

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SPEECH THERAPY

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School-based Speech therapist's assess, provide intervention, prepare reports, complete IEPs, and set conference times to maintain the critical connection to the student, parents, and educators.  The speech therapist's partner with teachers and administrators in intervention and evaluation to ensure students reach their academic goals. School speech pathologists work in schools and evaluate students who have physical and cognitive communication issues that affect their speech, voice, fluency, and language.

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A speech disorder is a difficulty with the actual production of sounds.  Speech disorders can include the following problems:

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• Articulation – difficulty producing sounds in syllables or saying words incorrectly to the point that others cannot understand what is being said.

• Fluency – this is includes problems such stuttering, a condition in which the flow of speech in interrupted by abnormal stoppages, repetitions, prolonging sounds and syllables.

• Resonance- this is associated with problems with the pitch, volume, or quality or the voice that distracts listeners from what is being said. This type of disorder can also cause pain for the child when speaking. 

• The speech therapists evaluate the child with a serious of different tests, they can identify the types of communication problems and the best way to treat them.

• Speech Therapists treat problems in oral-motor, speech, voice, articulation and dysfluency.

• A therapist will work with a child one on one or in small group settings to overcome the speech disorder, using a variety of different strategies.

•  Articulation therapy- this involves having the therapist model correct sounds and syllables to the child. The therapist will show the child how to make certain sounds such as “r” or “s” sounds and will demonstrate the proper movement of the tongue to produce different sounds.

•  Language intervention activities- in these types of exercises the therapist will react with the child by playing and talking. Some tools used in this therapy will include pictures, books, objects or ongoing events to stimulate conversation and language development. Again with this therapy they might also model correct pronunciation and use repetition exercises to build speech and language skills.

 

Kids might need speech or language therapy for a variety of different reasons:

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• Weak oral muscles

• Birth defects such as cleft lip or cleft palate

• Respiratory issues (breathing issues)

• Traumatic brain injury

• Autism

• Motor planning problems

• Hearing impairments

• Cognitive (thinking or intellectual) or other developmental delays

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