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Occupational Therapy
Services
 Occupational Therapy is a service
that helps people with psychosocial, motor, or cognitive impairment, perform
their daily routines with the highest level of independence so they can function
to their fullest potential in all environments. At Speech Solutions, our
occupational therapists help children develop abilities needed for the
occupations of childhood which include play, self-care, school performance, and
social interactions. Intervention is focused on the acquisition of specific
skills and the development of compensatory strategies and environmental
accommodations needed for success in a child’s daily life. It is the goal of
occupational therapy to ensure that children develop the skills needed to
participate in life meaningfully and successfully and transition into
adulthood.
General
Occupational Therapy services:
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Comprehensive assessments including the
Sensory Integration and Praxis Test (SIPT), the Miller Assessment for
Preschoolers (MAP), the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (PDMS-2), the
Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency; The Beery-Buktenica
Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, structured clinical
observations and parent interviews
Specific
Occupational Therapy services include assessment, intervention and consultation
in:
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Activities of Daily
Living/Self-Care Skills- helps develop basic skills
performed on a daily basis, including bathing, toileting, dressing, hygiene,
and eating skills.
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Cognitive Skills- help develop age appropriate object use, problem solving
skills, play skills, social skills and communication.
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Oral Motor-assist
with the development of strength, tone, and coordination for sucking and
drinking, biting and chewing, and coordinating sucking, swallowing and
breathing.
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Sensory Integration- under the context of play and direction
from the child, deficits in underlying sensory and motor foundations are
addressed. Therapists incorporate the child’s interests into
activities and allow the “just–right” amount of assistance to challenge the
child while ensuring a certain degree of success. Active participation
in a variety of sensory enriched activities is used to address identified
deficits in the 6 senses (vestibular, proprioception, tactile, auditory,
visual, gustatory), encourage a child’s ability to make adaptive responses,
and empower the children and their parents to identify and understand
behavior related to sensory processing dysfunction and manage these
behaviors appropriately and successfully.
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Feeding Aversions- identify sensory and/or motor based eating
problems and design a feeding treatment plan for the clinic and home
settings to increase oral motor skills, decrease aversions and make eating
more enjoyable for the child and family thereby allowing an increase in the
quantity and variety of foods the child eats.
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Fine Motor Skills- assist with the development of small group muscles and
the use and coordination of these muscles to perform functional skills.
grasp and release of objects, bilateral manipulation, in-hand manipulation,
hesitancy to touch and explore with hands, and lack of hand-to-mouth
pattern.
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Gross Motor Skills- assist with the development and strengthening of large
group muscles and the use and coordination of these muscles to sit upright,
walk, run, skip, jump, throw, catch, kick and climb stairs.
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Handwriting Skills- assist with the development of pencil grasp,
prewriting skills, letter perception, right/left discrimination, orientation
to printed language, letter formation, spacing and organizations of writing
on paper. Speech Solutions uses Jan Olsen’s “Handwriting Without Tears”
Program.
 
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Motor
Planning- asses the child’s ability to form an idea about an
action, plan the action, and execute it, identitying which aspects of motor
planning are problematic. Assist children with the motor planning process
while challenging their abilities until they can spontaneously sequence and
organize movements in a coordinated manner to perform unfamiliar motor tasks
and use their hands and body in skilled tasks.
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Environmental Adaptations- help parents and teachers adapt the
child’s environment to alter sensory input, meet sensory needs, help the
child organize materials, and facilitate specific behaviors. Ultimately the
child is taught to use cues and self monitoring strategies, eventually
empowering them to organize tasks and behaviors themselves as they get
older.
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Life Skills-
Help children, adolescents and young adults develop practical skills used
and applied in daily life, such as reading a menu, using money, making phone
calls, creating/reading schedules and social concepts.
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