Vision is a complicated process - it is much more than just how well we see. Vision is a combination of visual acuity (eyesight), how our eyes function (tracking, eye teaming), and visual processing. This article will focus on the components of - and importance of - visual processing (visual perception) in learning. 

As the flowers start to bloom and the sun is shining more, May seemed to fly by again this year. But during the past month, many important causes, populations, or groups were highlighted - both nationally and internationally - in order to raise awareness, education, and acceptance of such areas. This post is a recap of some of the groups that were acknowledged in the month of May. Click here to learn more. 

May is Apraxia Awareness Month. Check out this article to learn more about childhood apraxia of speech.

Did you know that strokes can happen at any age? That means kids can have strokes too! Check out this article to learn more about pediatric stroke.

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month- so that means we get to highlight the profession and why we love our speech therapists! As an Occupational Therapist, I rely on, and collaborate with, my speech language pathologists regularly in order to best serve our kids. Check out this article to learn more about pediatric speech therapy (from an occupational therapist perspective) and why I love working alongside these amazing therapists. 

May is Better Speech and Hearing Month- so that means we get to highlight the profession and why we love our speech therapists! Check out this article to learn more about pediatric speech therapy- who we are, what we do, how we do it and why speech therapy is so important.

Check out this article to learn how you can add speech and language targets into some of our favorite OT activities. 

Occupational therapy is designed to use purposeful and meaningful activities to help individuals develop ‘skills for the job of living’. Well how do kids develop these skills? Through play! So it only makes sense that our sessions are play based and child led. Click here to learn about a few of our favorite OT activities, what they address and why they have become a fan favorite.

Check out this article to learn how Friend Files can support the skill development need to build peer-to-peer relationships.

Check out this article to learn some simple tips and tricks to making mealtime with your children fun again.

Patience is virtue. When you let your child lead, they’ll want to communicate with you even more. Check out this article to learn why the OWL approach helps your children develop the language they need to reach their optimum potential.

April is occupational therapy (OT) month – so that means we get to highlight the profession and why we love our OTs! Check out this article to learn more about pediatric occupational therapy – what we do, how we do it and why OT is so important. 

One primary role as parents is to assist our children through many activities of daily living in order to promote health, well-being and participation of our children with their environment. Hair cuts, nail clipping, and other grooming activities can be difficult for a child – and family - particularly if the child struggles with sensory processing. Click here to learn how to provide a sensory-friendly environment for difficult grooming activities in order to improve your child's tolerance and participation in such routine necessities.  

Knowing that many activities of daily living can be extremely taxing, and even overwhelming for our kids allows us to prepare and proactively implement strategies to promote a more successful experience for everyone involved. Click here for a list of strategies and resources to help improve hair and nail clipping experience with you kids.

Executive functioning is a set of mental skills that our kids use every day to actively engage in daily life skills, learn and play. Executive functioning is responsible for your child’s ability to sustain attention, organize and plan, initiate and complete, problem solve and regulate emotions. There are many different ways to address breakdowns in the area of executive functioning. Your therapy team works together to address ‘the whole child’ so they can perform at their best. Check out some ways in which speech therapy can focus on improving your child’s executive functioning skills. 

Executive function is a set of mental skills that our kids use every day to actively engage in daily like skills, learn, and play. Executive function is responsible for your child’s ability to sustain attention, organize and plan, initiate and complete, problem solve, and regulate emotions. There are many different ways to address breakdowns with executive functioning skills. Your therapy team works together to address ‘the whole child’ so they can perform at their best. Check out some ways in which occupational therapy can focus on improving your child’s executive functioning skills. 

One of Kip's favorite things to do, especially on rainy days, is to color. Coloring is fun way for kids to express their creativity while simultaneously developing foundational fine motor skill needed for handwriting. Plus is can be a relaxing/calm down activity for the kids to engage in while their parents cook dinner. Check out some of Kip's coloring pages here! (free PDF downloads)

Kip the Kangaro has become an integral part of our daily routines both in our clinics and at home. Click here to learn why we love Kip. 

Cultural Humility is defined as a way or incorporating multiculturalism through flexibility and awareness of bias. It is a lifelong, learning-oriented approach to working with diversity; and a recognition of the role of power in health care interactions. As we enter the last week of black history month, we wanted to highlight the importance of yrarlong and life long learning as it relates to race and cultural. This article aims to provide ways in which you and your child can engage in, and practice, cultural humility.

Even the most successful of individuals have faced adversity. Check out this article to learn about a variety of celebrities who have speech and language, sensory, motor and mental health disorders.

Feeding is necessary for survival. Food is what gives our brain and our bodies the energy to learn, grow, develop and reach our optimal potential. But it is important to know that eating does not come naturally to some kids and thus, mealtime- and feeding in general- can be a very stressful time for families. Learn more about the importance of food play and investigation here.

Kids learn about food through play. Allowing your child to use all of their senses to explore foods can help prepare them for eating a variety of different flavors and textures. Assisting with meal time and including your kids in a variety of food crafts is an awesome way to have some fun while learning. With Valentine's Day around the corner, why not spread some love with food crafts. Check out some fun food crafts here. 

Handwriting is an important developmental task for children to learn. Through handwriting, we can express ourselves and communicate with the world around us. However, it is imperative to acknowledge that handwriting is complicated - there are so many skills and factors that go into the physical act of putting letters/words on paper. Check out this article for some tips to help promote development of handwriting skills for your children.

Storytelling is a critical component of language and communication. However, it can sometimes be a challenge for our kids. Check out this article for 7 tips for teaching and practicing storytelling with your kids. 

Emotional validation is defined as the process of learning about, understanding, and accepting another person’s emotions. Validation helps us connect with others, including our children, in addition to promoting self-confidence, emotional intelligence, and growth. This blog post will help you understand what validation is, why it’s important, and how you can incorporate it into your everyday parenting.

Check out this post for five useful tips you can use when talking to your kids about politics and elections. 

Setting goals is critical to happiness and success. Teaching kids to establish and work towards goals introduces them to responsibility, time-management, self-confidence, resilience and perseverance. Check out this post to learn more about steps for setting realistic goals for a productive 2021.

As we enter a new year, it is so important that we learn from the lessons of the past and practice gratitude every day in order to build a better world for ourselves and our children. Check out this article to learn about the four parts of gratitude and tips for teaching your kids how to embrace the gratitude attitude.

Did you know that there are many scientific benefits of practicing gratitude? Seriously, can actually change your life. Check out this article to learn more about the importance of developing and practicing the gratitude attitude.

The year of 2020 has brought a lot of unpredictable change to what we considered “normal”. Forcing us to reevaluate and redefine how we interact with one other and stay connected to those important to us. Virtual game nights are a great way to bring some entertainment to your family and friends while staying safe and healthy during this crazy time. This article provides simple tips, tricks and how-to's for adapting your game nights in order to target a variety of developmental skills for your children in a fun and entertaining way.  

With 2020 bringing many challenges to us all, it is important to connect and have some fun with our loved ones, near or far. Here are our top 10 games for hosting or participating in a virtual game night. 

2020 has managed to be the longest and shortest year simultaleously - and even though we might not believe it, the holidays are right around the corner. Our OTs have come together to compile some of our favorite games for our little ones. Check it out here.

2020 has managed to be the longest and shortest year simultaleously - and even though we might not believe it, the holidays are right around the corner. Our Speech Therapist's have come together to compile some of our favorite games for our little ones. Check it out here.

Getting dressed for the day is a daily activity that can also cause a lot of stress on both parents and the child. With weather changes, comes changes in clothing, which for our touch sensitive kids can be a big deal. In this article we share some tips to help ease the transtision from summer to school clothes for your kids. 

As we navigate through a global pandemic and the multitude of changes that brings about, now more than ever our children are expected to adapt and “go-with-the flow”, but that isn't always the reality. As caregivers, it is our role to identify when and why these behaviors occur. Read more to learn about common triggers and how you can start to predict the when and why behind your child’s meltdowns.

Now that we have learned some of the common triggers for behavior and donned our detective hats, it’s time to investigate some tips and tricks to help manage those behaviors. Check out this article for some helpful hints during those difficult moments. 

A growth mindset is a view that ones abilities and talents are something that grows through practice. A mindset that embraces challenges, supports hard work, and encourages problem solving and learning through exploration (and occasionally failure). Providing an environment that views failures and mistakes as learning opportunities allows our kids to explore fearlessly, learn who they are and become the best version of themselves. This article provides a variety of ways you can promote the growth mindset with your children. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many changes into our daily routines, one of them being the need to wear a mask to protect ourselves and others. With this new normal, you might be asking “how can my child read someone’s facial expressions if they can only see less than half of their peer’s face?”.  Let’s talk about some key areas to “zone in on” when identifying nonverbal communication while wearing a mask, as well as ways to teach nonverbal communication with a mask on.

Conversations are the foundation for building friendships and relationships and are the key to social success. Here are a few social communication strategies to teach your kids how to start and maintain their their holiday conversations. 

Teaching your child to read nonverbal cues (e.g., facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, eye contact) will allow them to better identify how someone feels, and therefore how to act. 

Many children's intelligibility is impacted by the use of phonological processes. These are simpliciations of difficult-to-produce adult sounds. 

An activity of daily living – also known as an ADL – is a primary occupation an individual needs to perform every day. Both kids and adults need to engage in ADLs in order to function within their environment. Read more here. 

Pragmatic language, or the rules we follow when we communicate in social sitautions, is broken down into three major skills: using language for different reasons, changing language for the listener or situation, and following rules for conversation and storytelling. Pragmatic language is necessary to have effective and meaningful communication with others.