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A pediatric comprehensive OT evaluation aims to provide a detailed understanding of the child's strengths and difficulties across various developmental domains by utilizing a combination of standardized assessments, clinical observations, parent/caregiver reports, and interview-style assessments. This comprehensive assessment forms the foundation for creating an individualized intervention plan tailored to the child's unique needs, with the ultimate goal of enhancing their participation and engagement in meaningful daily activities.
Assessment Areas
1. Sensory Processing
The evaluation includes a thorough assessment of the child's sensory processing abilities, including their responses to sensory stimuli, sensory seeking or avoiding behaviors, and ability to regulate their sensory input.
2. Motor Skills
A comprehensive evaluation of motor skills encompasses both fine and gross motor abilities, including fine motor coordination, strength, balance, posture, and overall proficiency in motor tasks.
3. Activities of Daily Living (ADL)
Assessing the child's independence and performance in self-care activities, such as dressing, feeding, and grooming, as well as their ability to engage in school-related tasks and community activities.
4. Cognitive and Perceptual Skills
Evaluation of cognitive abilities, problem-solving skills, visual perception, and executive functioning to understand the child's capacity to process and respond to environmental demands.
5. Social-Emotional Development
Exploring the child's social skills, emotional regulation, play skills, and overall emotional well-being to address any challenges that may impact their social participation and relationships with peers and family.
Collaboration
We collaborate with the child's family, teachers, and other healthcare providers in order to gather a holistic view of the child's abilities and challenges and to ensure a coordinated approach to intervention and support.
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Our short OT evaluation process is designed to efficiently assess the most critical areas of need for our patients. By focusing on high-priority goals, we tailor our evaluations to pinpoint key areas for intervention, ensuring that our patients receive targeted and impactful therapy. Our goal is to provide actionable insights that lead to meaningful progress, allowing clients to quickly access the support and strategies they need to thrive in their daily lives.
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Are you seeking support for your child's developmental, sensory, functional or behavioral skills? Are you in need of some expert insights or a second opinion when it comes to occupational therapy? Whether you're looking for advice on a specific treatment approach, seeking clarification on a diagnosis, or simply desiring a fresh perspective, we will ease your concerns and provide you with the clarity you seek. Book a one-time OT consult today and take a proactive step towards empowered decision-making for your or your loved one's therapy j
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We provide occupational therapy treatment in a child's natural environment. Whether it's in their home, school, or a local park, our approach is tailored to meet the unique needs of each child. By offering OT treatment in familiar settings, we can create a comfortable and meaningful experience that promotes optimal development and growth. We will work closely with families, educators, and caregivers to integrate therapeutic interventions seamlessly into the child's daily routines.
Services
Interventions
At Purposeful Play Therapy, our pediatric occupational therapy (OT) treatment techniques are designed to address a wide range of needs in children. We understand that every child is unique, and therefore, our interventions are diverse and tailored to meet the specific requirements of each child. Listed below are some of the treatment approaches and techniques we use:
Clinical Approaches that work and are supported by peer-reviewed research:
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Consists of goals important to child/family to enhance engagement.
practice with real-life activities in natural environment.
practice, practice practice to activate plasticity.
support patient through task or environmental modification while offering ‘just right challenge’ to enable learning and task mastery.
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Used in neuromotor intervention.
Repetitive, mass practice of a task of patient’s choice
causes cortical reorganization and related functional improvement.
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Consists of selection of a meaningful goal
analysis of baseline performance
intervention/practice regime/ problem solving and feedback.
evaluation of outcome
Therapist designs learning situations to facilitate problem solving, explore alternative solutions and provide opportunities for practice.
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Used for children with various developmental delays.
Key therapy elements: Functional Goal, Parent Engagement, lots of practice- just like other Top-Down approaches.
However, it is unique as it aims at modifying the task and the environment to meet need of the child.
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Research has shown that parent involvement, parent coaching and parent led therapy at home leads to significant improvement in patient outcomes.
Traditional OT treatment interventions
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Gross and fine motor exercises are tailored to improve strength, balance, and coordination, and eye-hand coordination, dexterity, and grip strength, respectively to address specific functional challenges such as navigating playground equipment, ball skills, handwriting, cutting, self-feeding, manipulating buttons, zippers, etc.
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Cognitive strategies, principles of ABA, token economy, self-awareness, self-regulation, social stories, in-person or video modeling are used to shape behavior.
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Cognitive activities aim to improve attention, memory, and reasoning, fostering a child's ability to learn and succeed in various environments.
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CIMT aims to improve the functional use of an affected extremity for those who are impacted by stroke or other neurological conditions. It uses principles of mass practice while restraining the neurologically stronger limb.
Bimanual therapy aims to provide the opportunity for children to use their more affected arm/hand as an assisting hand during practice of bilateral activities.
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When appropriate, these activities are aimed at enhancing sensory modulation, motor skills, and emotional regulation, ultimately improving the child's ability to participate in daily activities safely and comfortably.
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The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is an applied behavior analysis (ABA) based therapy for children with autism between the ages of 12-48 months. Play and joint activities are used by therapist and parents to boost child’s language, social and cognitive skills.
Supported by strong empirical evidence.
Listed below are some of the diagnosis/functional deficits we treat:
Autism
Developmental Delays
ADHD
Developmental Coordination Disorder
Sensory Processing Disorder
Down Syndrome
Spina Bifida
Burns
Brachial Plexus Injury
Traumatic Brain Injury
Childhood Stroke
Generalized weakness
Daily life skills
Social skills
Community Integration skills
Various developmental and genetic disorders/syndromes
At Purposeful Play Therapy, we are committed to using a variety of evaluation and treatment tools (many not included above) to ensure that we deliver the highest quality care to our patients. If you have a specific treatment approach or tool in mind, please don't hesitate to share your preferences with us so that we can discuss its potential utility and application related to your child’s care.