Pediatric Therapy

Pediatric Modalities at Life Skills Village

Occupational Therapy

Why choose OT?
A child’s role in life is to play and interact with their environment. The pediatric occupational therapists at Mind Health Group provide support to infants, toddlers, children, and adolescents as well as their families for a variety of conditions and diagnoses.

We evaluate a child’s current skills related to play, school performance, and daily activities to then work to restore those skills compared to what is developmentally appropriate for the child’s age group. Through occupational therapy, we can help children perform daily activities by addressing sensory, social, behavioral, fine/gross motor skills, and environmental-related issues.

What is OT and what can be accomplished through OT?
Pediatric occupational therapy helps children increase independence and strengthen skills to meet developmental milestones, to then improve overall engagement with the world around them. Below are just a few of the areas that an occupational therapist can help your child!

Increase independence with basic daily tasks including:

  • Bathing
  • Dressing
  • Feeding
  • Toileting
  • Tooth brushing

Developing positive behaviors in all environments such as:

  • Identification of their emotions and self-regulation strategies
  • Implementation of regulation strategies and coping skills in a functional setting

Evaluating the need for specialized adaptive equipment including but not limited to:

  • Splints
  • Wheelchairs
  • Eating Utensils
  • Writing utensils
  • Dressing devices
  • Stability balance disc
  • Bathing equipment

Improving attention and social skills

  • Adapting/modifying their school environment to increase success
  • Learning healthy communication skills

Improving fine motor skills so to assist with the following:

  • Handwriting skills
  • Scissor skills
  • Using clothing fasteners (zippers, buttons, etc.)
  • Using eating utensils

Improve hand-eye coordination to increase the child’s ability to engage in play and school related skills including, but not limited to:

  • Catching a ball
  • Tying shoes
  • Brushing your hair
  • Reading and writing the information from a dry-erase board

Who may benefit from OT?

Children may require occupational therapy with or without the presence of a medical condition, and may just need a little extra help to meet their full potential. Children with the following medical conditions are considered to be ‘at risk’ for delays in skills impacting participation in home, play, and school environments.

  • Birth injuries or birth defects
  • Sensory processing disorder
  • Learning problems
  • Down Syndrome
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder
  • Mental health
  • Broken bones or other orthopedic injuries
  • Behavioral problems
  • Developmental delays
  • Post-surgical recovery
  • Spina bifida
  • Chronic illnesses such as:
    • Cancer
    • Multiple Sclerosis
    • Cerebral Palsy
    • Traumatic injuries (brain or spinal cord)

Speech Therapy

Life Skills Village’s Speech-Language Pathologists, also known as Speech Therapists, evaluate and treat speech, language, and cognitive-communication disorders in children from 2-17 years old.  Most children develop speech and language skills within a specific age range. A child who does not develop these skills within these age ranges may have a speech and/or language delay/disorder. For help understanding where your child is developmentally, please reference our Pediatric Developmental Milestones chart.

 

Speech delays/disorders are when a child has difficulty producing speech sounds clearly, intelligibly, or fluently (e.g. stuttering is a form of disfluency).  This likely impacts the child’s ability to be understood by others.

 

Language delays/disorders are when a child has difficulty verbalizing himself/herself and/or understanding language (i.e. difficulty following directions).  The language disorder may occur with the form, content, and/or function of language.

 

Cognitive-communication disorders include deficits with organizing thoughts, attention, memory, planning, reasoning, and/or problem-solving.  These deficits likely impact academic performance and social communication skills.  These disorders may occur following a traumatic brain injury, developmental disability, or intellectual disability.