We Offer:

POTS THERAPY

1. Occupational Therapy for children with sensory processing difficulties (neurodevelopmental) from a few months old to 16 years to help them  with:

• • Visual perception skills (from simple recognition of basic colours/shapes to complex skills such as form constancy, visual memory sequencing, figure-ground discrimination, spatial orientation)

• • Visual-Motor Integration (from simple building blocks and copying simple lines/strokes on paper to managing more complex patterns in preparation for writing skills)

• • Fine motor skills (from simple hand functions such as picking up small items to writing and other complex skills),

• • Gross motor skills (from early milestones to complex praxis skills including following instructions, mounting equipment, and doing sports with other same-aged)

• • Independence levels in personal/domestic self-help skills such as potty training, studying, coaching, organisation skills, cooking skills, and community skills such as money management 

• • Attention (we offer individualised regulation sessions and the Alert program)

2. Occupational Therapy for adolescents to help them with:

• • age-related matters such as the speed of writing/typing, studying, friendships, emotion regulation, and also doing assessments to confirm/refute whether there is a need for MATSEC access arrangements

3. Speech Therapy to ages up to 16 years to help them with: 

• • communication skills
  • speech development 
  • language development
  • oral motor development 
  • social skills (individual sessions and individualized groups)

4. Joint OT/Speech Therapy service to children who need both services

Note: If a child would have an existing therapy service already, we work with the existing therapist/s and offer the therapy that is not being provided.  The joint service helps those kids who cannot function well without sensory input before ‘concentration-time’ hence we plan our sessions to have a regulation session with the OT prior to speech therapy.  Joint work ensures that the child achieves his/her maximal potential.

5. Food clinic

• • OT, speech therapist + dietitian – all professionals are SOS trained – At POTS we assess and treat children who are picky eaters and problematic feeders.

6. Dietitian service

• • The dietitian offers assessments and consultation sessions to children and parents to guide and monitor them with their nutritional intake. Assistance to families with regards to which recipes are best to meet the nutritional requirements is also provided.

7. Sensory Integration 

Our qualified therapists also use a sensory approach in their practice.  This is based on Sensory Integration knowledge, which aims to address;

• • Sensory Modulation challenges (Regulation and attention type difficulties e.g. when a child overreacts to touch s/he may be very aware of the label in the back of his/her clothes, when a child is distressed with concerts, outings or break times.  Other behaviours that might be an indication of modulation difficulties may be refusing to keep shoes or uniform on, flapping hands, or withdraw from group work.  When a child is dysregulated, the attention gets affected)
  • Sensory Discrimination and perceptual challenges (Difficulties in this area would make a child struggle to interpret subtle differences in the sense. For example, being able to feel two different points of touch that are close together; this is useful when we are doing things like doing up buttons. The brain also has difficulty with giving meaning to the information it is receiving. If these problems are with proprioception or touch a person can seem clumsy, or use too much or too little force when doing things. People with visual perceptual problems may have difficulties with finding objects in cluttered environments, or finding a word on a page)
  • Vestibular-Bilateral Functional challenges (Difficulty with balance and difficulties with coordinating two sides of the body).
  • Praxis (Difficulty with ideation, motor planning, and execution. People with dyspraxia often look clumsy or awkward in their movements.)

8. Physiotherapy

Our qualified therapists use an an integrative approach depending on whether the child has a musculoskeletal or a postural difficulty.  The therapists are qualified to use manual therapy skills to help each child succeed in the therapy journey.  The parents are also guided with professional advise for home.  Physiotherapists can help with any of the following conditions:

• Neurological conditions (e.g. Cerebral Palsy)
• Lower limb dysfunctions (e.g. metatarsus adductus, talipes, flat foot, tip toe walk, tibial torsion or rotation, hip dysfunction)
• Digestive dysfunctions (e.g. colics, reflux, constipation)
  
• Lower back dysfunctions
• Dural tension
• Cranial and cervical dysfunctions (e.g. torticollis, plagiocephaly, cranyiosinostosis, oral motor skills dysfunctions)
• Developmental delay
• Developmental coordination disorder 
• Postural difficulties
• Other Motor dysfunctions

We pride ourselves with qualified therapists as well as with evidence-based practice.

9. ABA/VB-ABA and Early Intervention

Our qualified behaviour analysts offer several services:

• ABA/VB-ABA

Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), is a set of principles that are scientifically proven to be effective in changing human behaviour. The core principle is that human behaviour changes when the environment changes. This means we believe that every child can learn, providing we change the environment and our teaching method suitable for their needs. VB-ABA stands for Verbal Behaviour-Applied Behaviour Analysis. This refers to behaviour therapy with a focus on functional communication, social skills and related life skills. ABA involves breaking a skill down into simple, easily learned parts and then reinforcing the desired behavior of the child, so that they are more likely to repeat that action. Verbal Behavior, as its name suggests, places heavy emphasis on verbal language. More specifically, it focuses on the functional use of language rather than just teaching language itself.  ABA is commonly used to teach new skills to children with autism, it can be beneficial for a wide range of developmental delays, including intellectual disabilities and Asperger's, now diagnosed as autism, as well as behavioural disorders like ADHD.

• Early Intervention

Early intervention can encompass a variety of interventions that aim to improve a young child’s future. We specialise in early intervention for development, behaviour and learning which help support and build attention and listening skills at an appropriate developmental level. Evidence- based Naturalistic Developmental Behavioural Intervention (NDBI) approaches is used to support child development, alongside the well researched Pivotal Response Therapy (PRT), the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM),  Positive Parenting Practices, Attention Autism, Early Start Denver Model and Relationship Development Intervention (RDI®).  Early Intervention Therapy is for any child who is missing their milestones and/or showing early signs of behaviour, language or learning difficulties

• Parent Training

We never lose sight of the significant role you as a parent have to play in your child’s development.  Whether, you receive online or in-person coaching, our methods and goals remain the same. We’ll coach you on how to develop and implement ABA/PBS teaching tools and strategies that are most appropriate for your child, as well as help you recognize the many teachable moments in your child’s everyday life. This is to provide consistency in the child’s learning. Children excel in their learning when there is consistency in everyone’s teaching.

POTS EDUCATION

We are now offering one on one literacy lessons for children with difficulties in reading, spelling and writing sentences/essays. This service is for children with learning difficulties, dyslexia and dyscalculia.