Our outpatient rehabilitation services include physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology to all types of children with special needs ages birth to 21 years. All patients are seen by physician referral and a completed therapy recommendation from a Special Kids therapist. Learn how your child can begin receiving services at Special Kids on our Family Services page.

  
physical therapy

Physical Therapy (PT) strives to enhance and restore a child’s functional ability through developing the child’s gross motor skills. Our physical therapists strive to promote our children’s movement, strength, balance, and mobility.

The Special Kids PT staff work together with families and other professionals to encourage the child in participation of daily activities and routines. Our staff is trained to observe and evaluate a child’s functional mobility and may recommend bracing/orthotics, wheelchair and seating, or adaptive equipment. Treatment may also include the use of Cascade DAFOs, a line of customized orthotics, that our staff is trained in casting for, fitting, and modifying to meet a variety of children’s needs.

Skills physical therapy addresses include:

Mobility on indoor and outdoor surfaces and stairs
Lower extremity and core muscle strength
Joint range of motion
Endurance, coordination, and balance
Equipment needs
Ball skills 

 
occupational therapy

Occupational Therapy (OT) helps children to learn the skills of living.  OT works to help children be as independent as possible. This therapy addresses fine motor skills needed for self-care, handwriting, eating, and any activity a child needs to be able to do in daily life.

Some children need help to learn these basic skills that other children learn easily such as playing with a toy appropriately.  Many of the children we serve in OT have difficulty processing the input that they receive from their senses and the environment.  Through OT, we are able to help children learn needed skills, to be more independent, and to function more effectively in their daily lives.

During OT sessions, children do activities that help to learn the skills they need by breaking bigger tasks into smaller components of learning the task.  We strive to have the kids work on things in as fun a way as possible!

Skills occupational therapy addresses include:

Strength
Handwriting
Fine motor skills
Splints
Scissor skills
Sensory processing
Visual motor and visual perceptual skills
Visual perceptual skills
Self-care and life skills

 

speech language pathology

Speech Language Pathology (Speech Therapy or ST) works to improve a child's understanding of language and expression of their thoughts and feelings. ST helps children with cognitive aspects of communication, speech, language, and swallowing.

Many might say that ST works on "r" and "s" sounds, but it really helps children acquire the full range of human communication. Speech therapy focuses on three main areas: comprehension, expression, and articulation. This therapy helps children with the comprehension of both verbal and non-verbal language in understanding that people, places, and things have names as well as more complex language such as spoken directions, inferred meanings, and humor. Speech therapy also works on expressive communication through words, signs, pictures, or a communication device with the goals of communicating basic wants and needs and being understood. Lastly, this therapy helps with the articulation of speech which focuses on the sounds rather than the content. This form of ST helps a child learn the sounds of the English language so that others can more easily understand.

In addition, speech therapy helps children with swallowing or feeding disorders. A variety of diagnoses may contribute to weakness or incoordination of the structures used in swallowing or feeding. Also, feeding aversions may range from being a little picky to extreme aversions that lead to a child refusing most foods and not being able to maintain proper nourishment. This therapy focuses on presenting new foods in a systematic and non-threatening way.

Skills speech therapy addresses include:

Comprehension
Expression
Articulation
Cognitive therapy
Sensory feeding or swallowing disorders
Voice Disorders
Stuttering