Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapists ensure students can participate and engage in the daily school activities. They ensure students are provided with equal opportunities within the school setting to succeed academically and socially.

Once a related service need is identified by the educational team (IEP), a referral is made to occupational therapy to provide a complete and comprehensive service to a student.

Occupational Therapy in the School

Occupational Therapy Practitioners provide a continuum of services in the school to students and personnel under the IDEA. 
OT practitioners provide services to students struggling within the General Education by contributing to early intervention, RTI (response to intervention). OT practitioners can assist in screening process, providing teachers training for small groups or whole classroom.
OT practitioners also provide services to students through special education services under IEP by identifying the presence of a disability and is provided directly to the child or through consultation. Students who do not qualify for SPED are placed on 504 plan and may receive occupational therapy services within under that plan. 
Training and resources for teachers and district personnel
Participating on collaborative teams
Partnering with districts. 
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Occupational Therapists services online

Our experienced Occupational Therapists (OT) work with the IEP team members by consulting, collaborating, evaluating and providing treatments in our modern therapy platform. Through our live, online and personalized sessions our therapists can meet student’s needs to help them progress through their academic journey.

Remote OTs can also observe students within their classrooms inconspicuously and provide teachers with strategies to help a student with self-regulation skills.

Other speech conditions

Apraxia

Apraxia of speech (AOS)—also known as acquired apraxia of speech, verbal apraxia, or childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) when diagnosed in children—is a speech sound disorder. Someone with AOS has trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and consistently. AOS is a neurological disorder that affects the brain pathways involved in planning the sequence of movements involved in producing speech. The brain knows what it wants to say, but cannot properly plan and sequence the required speech sound movements.

What are the symptoms of apraxia of speech?

People with either form of AOS may have a number of different speech characteristics, or symptoms:

  • Distorting sounds. People with AOS may have difficulty pronouncing words correctly. Sounds, especially vowels, are often distorted. Because the speaker may not place the speech structures (e.g., tongue, jaw) quite in the right place, the sound comes out wrong. Longer or more complex words are usually harder to say than shorter or simpler words. Sound substitutions might also occur when AOS is accompanied by aphasia.
  • Making inconsistent errors in speech. For example, someone with AOS may say a difficult word correctly but then have trouble repeating it, or may be able to say a particular sound one day and have trouble with the same sound the next day.
  • Groping for sounds. People with AOS often appear to be groping for the right sound or word, and may try saying a word several times before they say it correctly.
  • Making errors in tone, stress, or rhythm. Another common characteristic of AOS is the incorrect use of prosody. Prosody is the rhythm and inflection of
  • speech that we use to help express meaning. Someone who has trouble with prosody might use equal stress, segment syllables in a word, omit syllables in words and phrases, or pause inappropriately while speaking.


National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorder

Auditory Processing Disorder

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) is a disorder of the auditory (hearing) system that causes a disruption in the way that an individual’s brain understands what they are hearing. It is not a form of hearing loss, despite showing difficulty with hearing-related tasks.

Some of the most frequently reported symptoms of APD include:

  • Significant difficulty understanding speech, especially in the presence of background noise
  • Difficulty following multi-step directions that are presented verbally, without visual cues
  • Easily distracted by loud or spontaneous (sudden) sounds
  • Difficulty attending to long lectures or other long periods of listening
  • Difficulty remembering and/or effectively summarizing information presented verbally
  • Difficulty reading, spelling, and/or writing when compared to their peers (performs consistently below grade level)
  • Trouble following abstract thoughts or ideas
  • Delayed or misunderstanding of jokes, idioms, and figurative language Nationwide Children’s.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave. Although autism can be diagnosed at any age, it is described as a “developmental disorder” because symptoms generally appear in the first 2 years of life. Children with ASD(Neurodivergent disorder) exhibits symptoms:

Poor social skills: Difficulty with communication and interaction with other people

  • Making little or inconsistent eye contact
  • Appearing not to look at or listen to people who are talking
  • Infrequently sharing interest, emotion, or enjoyment of objects or activities (including infrequent pointing at or showing things to others)
  • Not responding or being slow to respond to one’s name or to other verbal bids for attention
  • Having difficulties with the back and forth of conversation
  • Often talking at length about a favorite subject without noticing that others are not interested or without giving others a chance to respond
  • Displaying facial expressions, movements, and gestures that do not match what is being said
  • Having an unusual tone of voice that may sound sing-song or flat and robot-like
  • Having trouble understanding another person’s point of view or being unable to predict or understand other people’s actions
  • Difficulties adjusting behaviors to social situations
  • Difficulties sharing in imaginative play or in making friends

Restricted interests and repetitive behaviors:

  • Repeating certain behaviors or having unusual behaviors, such as repeating words or phrases (a behavior called echolalia)
  • Having a lasting intense interest in specific topics, such as numbers, details, or facts

Showing overly focused interests, such as with moving objects or parts of objects

  • Becoming upset by slight changes in a routine and having difficulty with transitions
  • Being more sensitive or less sensitive than other people to sensory input, such as light, sound, clothing, or temperature
  • repeating certain behaviors or words/phrases known as Echolalia,

Symptoms that affect their ability to function in school, work, and other areas of life: People with ASD may also experience sleep problems and irritability

National Institue of Mental Health

 

Literacy & Written Language

Spelling impairment and difficulties expressing ideas in written form can affect both reading and writing; difficulty or progress in either spelling or word reading can influence performance in the other area. Children with this type of defiits will struggle with reading and comprehension, word recognition, written language, dysgraphia,spelling.

Language Impairment

Represents a significant impairment in the acquisition and use of language across modalities due to deficits in comprehension and production across any of the five language domains (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics). Language disorders may persist across the lifespan, and symptoms may change over time.

Approximate Synonyms
  • Developmental expressive language disorder
  • Expressive developmental language delay
  • Expressive language delay
  • Expressive language delay, mild
  • Expressive language delay, moderate
  • Expressive language delay, severe
  • Language disorder, expressive
  • Mild expressive language delay
  • Moderate expressive language delay
  • Severe expressive language delay

Developmental Disorder

This is a communication disorder that interferes with how a child can understand, learn and use language.

Approximate Synonyms
  • Communication disorder
  • Delayed articulatory and language development
  • Developmental disorder w speech delay
  • Developmental language delay
  • Developmental language disorder
  • Developmental speech and language disorder
  • Developmental speech disorder
  • Disorder of language
  • Disorder of speech and language development
  • Language disorder, developmental
  • Language problem
  • Non-organic communication disorder
  • Psychogenic communication disorder
  • Speech and language disorder
  • Speech delay