These individual and group treatment sessions focus on teaching children functional skills so that they can become more independent in everyday activities.
The need to improve these skills is often identified by the child themselves and addressing them has a positive effect on the child's self-esteem and overall emotional well-being.
Children with the following difficulties may benefit from skills development:
- Dyslexia.
- Motor planning difficulties. (Dyspraxia)
- Learning difficulties.
- Visual Impairment.
- Attention Deficit Disorder.
- Global developmental delays.
- Genetic disorders.
- Autism Spectrum Disorder.
- Intellectual impairment
We employ a variety of therapeutic techniques to develop a child's functional skills. These include:
- Multisensory activities - Exposing a child to age-appropriate
activities that allow them to learn through touching, feeling, moving, listening and
looking.
This is helpful for children who have different learning styles. Each sense that is engaged during these activities gives the brain additional opportunity to encode and “integrate” the information for future reference.
Behavioural modification - Desired behaviours such as attending, listening and engaging is encouraged through positive verbal and non-verbal praise as well as pre-determined rewards or activities.
Additional visual support such as timers, tokens and visual schedule cards are often used to ensure that the child has a good understanding of what is expected.
Teaching and coaching - The child is provided with multiple opportunities to practice new skills.
Significant adults are encouraged to demonstrate or model tasks and to break activities into smaller, more manageable steps.
Each step is practised individually before they are combined, to ensure that the child will have the self-confidence to complete the total skill.
Logical thinking and problem solving - The therapy room becomes a safe space where children can try out new and novel tasks as well as solve old problems.
Instead of being given the solution, children are encouraged to work through obstacles, constructional games and abstract concepts in a logical manner and are guided by the therapist to find the solutions themselves.
This creates a sense of achievement in many children.
Parents, guardians and caregivers are encouraged to attend their child's therapy sessions as this provides an opportunity for training, understanding and interaction with the therapist.
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