Occupational Therapy (OT)
Occupational Therapy is a service that helps kids with physical or sensory needs. Occupational therapy covers a wide range of services and supports and helps focus on everything from skills in independence like feeding, dressing, and skill development to other skills like writing, playing, and learning. An Occupational Therapist sometimes has an assistant, called a COTA, who can help with these activities and learn to practice them.
Occupational Therapy can look really different depending on what someone’s goals are, developing fine motor skills, flexibility, tolerance and more requires an individual approach and Stronger Start provides individual case management, planning, and unique activities developed to assist them in reaching their goals. Coloring, crafts, games and more allow kids to learn while playing and provide a wonderful way to show progress through the games they play and things they create.
Physical Therapy
Physical Therapy is utilized to develop strength, coordination, and mobility within a person’s body. Developing resources to support sitting, standing, walking, for example allows a person to perform work tasks, activities of daily living (like dressing and showering) or be in our community safely and with confidence. Strength for children often is developed during play, like learning to stand, walk, crawl, climb, and more. For older Children, developing coordination to learn how to jump, run, and climb can be performed while playing on the playground, with games, and pretending to be our favorite superheroes. We give a stronger start to kids to reach their maximum physical potential and help strength training be fun. Using our individual planning model, integrated opportunities and focused on fun, we make hard work less hard and help kids reach new heights!
Speech and Language Pathology (SLP)
Speech and Language Pathology, also known as “SLP” or “Speech”, helps people find their voice and communicate their wants and needs as best as possible. For some, working on articulation, how words sound and pronounced, is a big goal. For others it may mean working on voice volume so they can be heard, developing muscles in their mouth and tongue to form words, or maybe working to identify alternative devices like tablets, pictures, or sign language to learn to communicate wants and needs. Our resident SLP helps explore options related to communication, develop plans based on individual and family needs, and works with children to support them in obtaining and maintaining their independence through communication.