Play 2 Learn 4 Life

We want to ensure that our therapy services are the right choice for your child, and that your therapist is the right choice for your family.  So much of therapy is the relationship between your therapist and your child.  So we want to make sure this is a good fit before we start. We can come to your home or you can make an appointment to come see our clinic space.

This can vary on the family.  But We like to spend about 3 hours in total to assess the family and child.

The first hour is where the therapist get to know the family.  This includes a family interview with the parents or other family members who are involved. The child does not need to be present at this meeting.  This meeting can occur at the clinic, your home, or somewhere in between (school, community centre, coffee shop).  We like to gather a detailed account of your family's daily routine and the activities that your child both enjoys and has difficulties with.  This interview leads us to the most important part of the therapeudic process, setting and prioritizing goals.  As guidelines we use:

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  • Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) to interview & set            goals
  • the Sensory Profile questionnaire to gather information on sensory                      processing.

The second hour is where we might informally assess your child in a natural setting.  We spend this time playing and getting to know your child based on their interests.  We follow their lead and pair our experiences with lots of fun.  We would like parents to be involved for part of the session but we also need to see how your child does on their own, as it often changes.  This session may include me doing an observation of your child in their preschool, daycare, or school setting.  

The third hour is where we formally assess your child in a structured setting.  This is most easily done in the clinic, but can be adapted for home or school settings. Testing provides standardized scores which can be used to measure a child's performance in relation to their peers and monitor their progress over the course of therapy.  Tests we can use include

• • Peabody Developmental Motor Scale: fine/gross motor skills for preschool
  • Miller Function and Participation Scale (M-FUN): school-readiness skills, 
  • Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT): fine/gross motor skills 
  • Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC): fine/gross motor diagnosis for DCD
  • Beery test for Visual Motor Integration (VMI): drawing/pre-printing skills
  • McMaster Handwriting Assessment: school-aged printing observations/skills
  • Clinical Observation of Motor and Postural Skills: COMPS (5-15 years)

45 min therapy appointments will vary in frequency depending on your child's needs and depend on the services that they are already receiving (school therapy, home-based teams, etc.).  

Ideally we would see your child once a week initially to set up programs at either the clinic or at your home. The therapist will write up detailed notes after each session for you to share with other service providers and to try things at home between appointments. Later as skills are being generalized and goals are being mastered, sessions may decrease in frequency and may only occur as needed.

We are available to offer small groups of 4 kids matched on skill level to run small group activities.  The following programs work well in groups:

• School-Readiness: fine motor skills, pencil skills, drawing, cutting, printing
• Feeding: structured snack time to introduce new foods to picky eaters
• ALERT program for sensory-based self-regulation "How does your engine run?"
• Hiking club: go out for walks in the woods to learn about nature with friends
• SUPERFLEX social skills program for young kids
•  PEERS social skills program for teens

We are available to help consult on home-based behaviour therapy teams.  In these sessions we may work with a Behaviour Interventionist (BI) to train them on how to deliver specific OT/SLP procedures, so that they can be carried out daily as part of their ongoing behaviour programming.  

We are also available to attend team and school meetings to help advocate for services and share procedures/techniques with other service providers (Supported Education Assistants, Teacher Aides, etc..)