Occupational Therapy Services

	Occupational Therapy Services
	What is Occupational Therapy? Occupational therapy is the treatment of children with physical injury or illness, developmental disabilities or delays, and feeding disorders. Occupational therapy helps children to learn self-care, fine motor skills, reading skills, increase trunk strength, and provide feeding intervention. Children with the following diagnosis may benefit from Occupational Therapy: Prematurity Attention deficit disorder Failure to thrive Upper extremity orthopedic injuries Cerebral palsy Brachial plexus injury Spina bifida
	Infant stroke Autism/Pervasive developmental delay (PDD) Head injury General developmental delay Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis Down's syndrome Children in need of an evaluation due to difficulties in school with recommendations to the school and family. How can my child benefit from Occupational Therapy? Children can learn to process information and function at a level appropriate with their peers Nutrition - understanding why a child may not be eating Ensure infants are transitioning to the next age of feeding development (i.e., sucking on a bottle to baby foods to table foods) Improve eye-hand coordination and object manipulation Enhance pre-writing/drawing skills Increase upper extremity and trunk strength to enable a child to sit up, crawl, walk, etc. Improve play skills Sensory Integration is a child's ability to feel, understand, and organize sensory information from their body and their environment. How well a child's system coordinates and understands this sensory input greatly affects his/her ability to learn, develop social and play skills, communicate, attend, and participate in the world around them. Children with Autism or Autistic Spectrum Disorders have the greatest difficulty processing sensory input within the environment. Sounds, touch, smells, etc. may over stimulate or may not be regulated within the brain. Some behaviors associated with Autism can be attributed to poor sensory processing. Feeding Intervention provides treatment for children unable to eat the foods appropriate to their developmental stage. Difficulty in certain areas listed below may affect a child's ability to eat a variety of foods, feed self with utensils, and drink from a cup: Poor coordination when drinking from a bottle Decreased ability to transition from bottle to baby food, and from baby food to table food Overall low muscle tone Cleft palate Drooling past 18 months Sensitive gag reflex Self-Care Therapy includes improving a child's ability to dress and undress themselves including fasteners, and general hygiene. Fine Motor Therapy addresses the following areas: Using scissors Pencil grasp Imitation skills for drawing that leads to independence in writing Upper extremity strengthening Using two hands together Puzzles Prehension patterns (picking up objects with fingers) Click on any link below to go to that page. Autism Resources Physical Therapy Occupational Therapy Speech-Language Developmental Therapy Our Therapy Team Free Developmental Screenings Early Childhood Intervention / First Steps Passport to Friendship our Social Skills Group Handwriting Clinic Pediatric Orthopedic Clinic
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