Serving Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee
Understanding How to Support Children Who Have Experienced Trauma What is trauma? Shock trauma– An experience of an overwhelming event which is perceived as life-threatening. Developmental trauma– Ongoing childhood abuse or lack of nurturing during developmental periods in childhood. This includes; emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, as well as neglect, attachment disruptions, and medical trauma. […]
The goal of occupational therapy, better known as OT, is to increase children’s independence across their natural environments. Occupational therapists work on underlying skills in order to build up to completing larger, functional tasks, such as dressing, grooming, bathing, and toileting. Some of these areas are executive functioning, social skills, sensory processing, fine motor skills, […]
Did you know “people games” help motivate your child to communicate? These games, with repetitive movements, sounds and words, help your child learn to take turns verbally and to imitate/copy what you are doing. Verbal turn taking and imitation are early communication skills that are delayed in many of the children we see in […]
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”—Dr. Seuss I started reading to my kids the day they came home from the hospital. All 3 of my boys have always loved to read and were early readers. As a speech language pathologist, […]
As an occupational therapist and an “instant parent” with foster children, I have spent a lot of time researching, thinking, trialing, and working on sleep for all four of my children! My oldest has the highest need for sleep and also the most difficulty with sleeping. We have spent a great deal of effort adjusting […]
It is that time of year again when school begins, and many families are searching for answers about which model of speech therapy is best for their child. Many families do not realize there is a difference between the two models. As a speech therapist who has worked in both settings, I am here to […]
When my son was young, he often experienced a great deal of anxiety about all kinds of things. He was worried about what would happen tomorrow, or in the next half hour. He would get so upset thinking about all the things that were outside of his control because he didn’t know how to face […]
What are social games/verbal routines? Social games/verbal routines are interactive songs, finger games/rhymes with hand motions, and repetitions of the same phrases/sentences of language in the context of a playful activity that are beneficial to building social interaction and learning language. Social games and verbal routines are FUN for kids because they are repetitive, easy […]
It has been proven time and time again that young children learn best doing familiar things with familiar people in familiar environments. This is the reason why early intervention services (0-3 years) should take a whole family approach with lots of caregiver education and training. Parents and caregivers are a child’s first and most […]
As a pediatric occupational therapist, playdough has become the Swiss Army knife in my “toolbox” of occupational therapy equipment. I keep multiple containers of it in each of my therapy bags as well as my therapy spaces. When I see it on sale, I buy it in bulk so often that my husband has begun […]