Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapists promote growth and development. With many years of experience and specialized skills, they address such high risk factors as prematurity, central nervous system disorders, chromosomal abnormality, oral-motor difficulties, and more.

Specific developmental areas addressed include self care and activities for daily living, fine-motor skills, oral-motor skills, and socialization. The occupational therapist can help your family select educational materials and activities based on the child’s sensorimotor and suck-swallow-breath synchrony.

Pediatric Services teaches finger, spoon, fork, and cup skills; dressing skills, with guidance and assistance from the parent; and hygiene skills with items such as a brush, toothbrush, washcloth. By working with your child to dress and undress dolls, we teach buttoning, zipping, and other activities of daily living.

Oral-motor skills should develop in a predictable sequence: Sucking, biting, crunching, chewing, and then licking. Techniques to progress oral motor skills — such as using firm pressure and working with toothbrushes and wash cloths — are taught to assist the family and child in integrating this area of development. Desensitization activities may also be taught to address oral motor difficulties.

We use "modeling" and social games as well as play between parent-child (or among siblings).

Mirror play, pretend play, social play, and play that demonstrates a variety of uses for one toy help your child grow and understand. We also illustrate appropriate responses to your child’s behaviors and strategies for intervening.

Most importantly, we promote fine-motor or hand skills with activities that use peg boards, block play, pointing, and grasping. We use pre-writing and writing games, interweaving them into a plan that will optimize your child’s small motor skills.

We are sensitive to your cultural and societal attitudes about self care and their related behaviors. Education and awareness are the cornerstones to understanding. Your child looks to you for every need and your guidance is the most important part of her development. This makes the parent–professional partnership the basis for successful intervention for your child.

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