Pediatrics Therapy

Our physical, occupational, and speech therapists will treat your child for a variety of matters:

Muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, torticollis, toe-walking syndrome, speech disorders, swallowing/eating issues, motor skill issues, and other developmental delays and disorders.

Services

Physical Therapy

Your physical therapists will use exercise, specialized training techniques, and play therapy to help your child regain their balance, endurance, strength, mobility and coordination to perform gross motor activities like jumping, walking, crawling, maneuvering, steps, inclined ramps, stairs, and obstacles. We also help your child with sports-related injuries so they can safely return to their sport and provide education on proper warm-ups/cool-downs to prevent future re-injuries.

Services

Speech Therapy

Your speech therapist will help your child improve communication skills as well as swallowing/eating techniques. Speech therapy not only focuses on oral motor function and producing sounds, but also on how the brain processes and assists in language production. Some children have difficulty producing specific speech sounds, producing words and creating cohesive, meaningful thoughts, while others have trouble understanding others, answering questions and following verbal directions. Some children, still, may have difficulty producing fluent, smooth speech, or may have difficulty with reading or early literacy skills. Speech therapy also encompasses children who have difficulty with the mechanical components of feeding themselves and/or swallowing foods and liquids. Through the use of oral stimulation and feeding techniques, articulation strategies, cognitive training and expressive and receptive language techniques, our speech therapists are able to address these challenges and help your child develop refined chewing, swallowing, reading and communication skills.

Services

Occupational and
Hand Therapy

Your pediatric occupational therapist (OT) will help address any physical, sensory, or cognitive issues that may affect your child’s fine motor control, sensory processing, cognitive skills, and visual perception. Various therapeutic techniques used by your OT will help your child button a shirt, tie shoelaces, improve handwriting skills, hold a crayon, develop better problem-solving skills with improved attention and focus.

Your OT will focus on helping your child achieve independence in their everyday activities. They will evaluate your child's ability to participate in daily activities and provide treatment for areas of improvement identified as a result of assessments and through therapeutic interview with parents/guardians/family members. Our skilled OTs are able to assist your child in being as independent as possible by working with them one on one to address those needs; this can make significant differences for children that ultimately allow them to interact with their environment in age-appropriate ways as independently as possible. This can look like a child who can now hold their crayon correctly, allowing them to finish a coloring task without getting too tired; or it could be a child who has learned self-regulation techniques that work for them in stressful or overwhelming situations, such as deep breathing and using a weighted blanket. It could be a child who now has the confidence to use the bathroom at school because they have gained independence with fastening and unfastening their own pants. Pediatric OT will help your child gain the basic motor skills and sensory awareness needed for development, learning, communication and age appropriate behavior, which includes working on the following:

- Primitive reflex integration
- Body awareness and positioning in space
- Coordination of movements between the two sides of the body
- Fine motor coordination
- Praxis
- Gross motor coordination
- Visual perceptual skills
- Self-regulation
- Sensory modulation

Services

SENSORIUM

At SPTC, it’s important for us to explore innovative ways for you to be more fully engaged with your environment. The Sensorium is a multi-sensory integration room with specific equipment and therapy activities to benefit those with various sensory processing needs for children and adults. Visual stimulation, tactile input, proprioceptive input, vestibular input and soothing sensory-friendly lighting combine to give you the sensory tools you need to help improve attention, auditory and tactile awareness, emotional regulation, visual tracking and interaction. The Sensorium room is great for those who have an autism disorder, ADD, ADHD, communicative disorders, toe walkers, etc.

Elements of the Sensorium include:

Visual stimulation – dynamic color changing bubble columns and fiber optic light strands located in various stations throughout the room and a rotating projector that displays various scenes onto the wall.
Olfactory stimulation – an aromatherapy station to engage the olfactory senses for increasing or decreasing arousal.
Auditory stimulation – 3 separate receivers with FM radio and CD capabilities to play music or ambient noises.
Tactile stimulation – a vibroacoustic rocker, bench, and water bed can all use vibration to help calm individuals while a set of textured steps help to activate one’s tactile senses and draw awareness to one’s feet during therapy. Color-changing ball pit can increase tactile awareness for a person with hypersensitivity.
Vestibular stimulation- a large vibroacoustic rocker allows a person to be rocked at various speeds to provide vestibular input for calming and regulation as needed.
Proprioceptive stimulation- selection of weighted blankets and weighted vests in varying sizes to provide deep pressure input for calming and regulation.

Our state-of-the-art sensorium is one of only a few of its kind in the state of Florida and it provides an undeniable benefit to those who need it; we are so happy to be able to provide this multi-sensory therapeutic experience to our patients!