Occupational Therapy has a wide scope of practice. SPS Occupational Therapists specialize in pediatrics and are uniquely equipped to help children develop the basic sensory-processing and motor skills they need for reading, writing, athletic activities, and self-care.

Experts in therapeutic activity and function, SPS Occupational Therapists evaluate the child’s motor coordination, visual perception, visual-motor coordination, muscle strength, balance, cognition, and self-care and play skills to determine if any of these areas need intervention. They then select increasingly complex play activities to fine-tune the child’s skills and advance his performance. For example, a six-year-old who has an immature grasp and is having difficulty writing on the lines may require intervention in the areas of hand strength, eye-hand coordination, and visual perception to hold the pencil correctly and write legibly on the lines.  SPS Occupational Therapists have advanced training in sensory integration and feeding and swallowing dysfunction.

"Central to the SPS approach is the belief that the family is an integral part of the team for each child’s optimal growth and development."

Sensory integration refers to how a person’s nervous system processes incoming information and how it formulates the resulting verbal or motor output. Many children have faulty “wiring,” meaning that the brain misinterprets incoming sensory information and thus develops an incorrect response, resulting in inappropriate behavior. SPS Occupational Therapists can help children process incoming information more accurately and plan correlative output responses more effectively.

Pediatric feeding and swallowing dysfunction pertains to oral-motor strength and coordination, as well as dietary preferences. SPS Occupational Therapists can help the child who has difficulty transitioning from a bottle to puréed food, who won’t eat food with “lumps,” or who prefers such wheat-based products as macaroni and cheese, pasta, Goldfish crackers, and white bread.

Occupational Therapy at SPS is designed to provide children with the tools they need to better equip them for the job of living.