Our creative occupational therapy team helps infants and children achieve independence in various aspects of their daily lives. We facilitate play, learning and self-care skills by improving thier fine motor skills, sensory processing abilities, behavioural and visual perceptual skills in a fun and engaging setting.
We use multiple art forms like music, drama, visual arts, dance - movement and their combination to work towards therapeutic goals to improve children's gross and fine motor skills, social interaction, congnitive abilities and decrease behavioural issues.
Our dedicated physiotherapy team works to acquire maximum functional mobility in children with disabilities or injuries.We use specialized, one-on-one techniques to address gross motor deficits in gait (walking), balance, strength, range of motion and safety in a playful and interactive environment.
Our expert remedial therapy team helps children develop their skills rather than on content and develop their strength. and fill in the gaps in learning. We facilitate language and vocabularydevelopment, math operations, squencing, abstract reasoning, logical thinking, handwriting skills, functional academic skills and socio-behavioural skills.
Our psychologists evaluate children in various domains and help understand their strength and weaknesses. They counsel children and families to help them deal with behavioural issues and also inculcate self-belief and confidence to deal with stressful situations.
Our dynamic speech and language therapy team assesses and implements therapy for children with articulation, voice, fluency(i.e. stuttering), language, feeding and swallowing disorders in a positive and motivating atmosphere. We also work on social and communication skills.
ADHD
ADD
Autism spectrum disorder
Learning Disability
Cerebral Palsy
Downs Syndrome
Genetic Disorders
Sensory Processing Disorder
Prematurity
Rehabilitation for pediatric orthopedic conditions - CTEV, CDH , Brachial plexus injury, post fractures,
postural deformities like scoliosis.
Sensory integration is an innate neurobiological process and refers to the integration and interpretation of sensory stimulation from the environment by the brain. In contrast, sensory integrative dysfunction is a disorder in which sensory input is not integrated or organized appropriately in the brain and may produce varying degrees of problems in development, information processing, and behavior. A general theory of sensory integration and treatment has been developed by Dr. A. Jean Ayres from studies in the neurosciences and those pertaining to physical development and neuromuscular function. This theory is presented in this paper.
Sensory integration focuses primarily on three basic senses--tactile, vestibular, and proprioceptive. Their interconnections start forming before birth and continue to develop as the person matures and interacts with his/her environment. The three senses are not only interconnected but are also connected with other systems in the brain. Although these three sensory systems are less familiar than vision and audition, they are critical to our basic survival. The inter-relationship among these three senses is complex. Basically, they allow us to experience, interpret, and respond to different stimuli in our environment. The three sensory systems will be discussed below.
Tactile System: The tactile system includes nerves under the skin's surface that send information to the brain. This information includes light touch, pain, temperature, and pressure. These play an important role in perceiving the environment as well as protective reactions for survival.
Dysfunction in the tactile system can be seen in withdrawing when being touched, refusing to eat certain 'textured' foods and/or to wear certain types of clothing, complaining about having one's hair or face washed, avoiding getting one's hands dirty (i.e., glue, sand, mud, finger-paint), and using one's finger tips rather than whole hands to manipulate objects. A dysfunctional tactile system may lead to a misperception of touch and/or pain (hyper- or hyposensitive) and may lead to self-imposed isolation, general irritability, distractibility, and hyperactivity.
Tactile defensiveness is a condition in which an individual is extremely sensitive to light touch. Theoretically, when the tactile system is immature and working improperly, abnormal neural signals are sent to the cortex in the brain which can interfere with other brain processes. This, in turn, causes the brain to be overly stimulated and may lead to excessive brain activity, which can neither be turned off nor organized. This type of over-stimulation in the brain can make it difficult for an individual to organize one's behavior and concentrate and may lead to a negative emotional response to touch sensations.
Vestibular System: The vestibular system refers to structures within the inner ear (the semi-circular canals) that detect movement and changes in the position of the head. For example, the vestibular system tells you when your head is upright or tilted (even with your eyes closed). Dysfunction within this system may manifest itself in two different ways. Some children may be hypersensitive to vestibular stimulation and have fearful reactions to ordinary movement activities (e.g., swings, slides, ramps, inclines). They may also have trouble learning to climb or descend stairs or hills; and they may be apprehensive walking or crawling on uneven or unstable surfaces. As a result, they seem fearful in space. In general, these children appear clumsy. On the other extreme, the child may actively seek very intense sensory experiences such as excessive body whirling, jumping, and/or spinning. This type of child demonstrates signs of a hypo-reactive vestibular system; that is, they are trying continuously to stimulate their vestibular systems.
Proprioceptive System: The proprioceptive system refers to components of muscles, joints, and tendons that provide a person with a subconscious awareness of body position. When proprioception is functioning efficiently, an individual's body position is automatically adjusted in different situations; for example, the proprioceptive system is responsible for providing the body with the necessary signals to allow us to sit properly in a chair and to step off a curb smoothly. It also allows us to manipulate objects using fine motor movements, such as writing with a pencil, using a spoon to drink soup, and buttoning one's shirt. Some common signs of proprioceptive dysfunction are clumsiness, a tendency to fall, a lack of awareness of body position in space, odd body posturing, minimal crawling when young, difficulty manipulating small objects (buttons, snaps), eating in a sloppy manner, and resistance to new motor movement activities.
Another dimension of proprioception is praxis or motor planning. This is the ability to plan and execute different motor tasks. In order for this system to work properly, it must rely on obtaining accurate information from the sensory systems and then organizing and interpreting this information efficiently and effectively.
Implications: In general, dysfunction within these three systems manifests itself in many ways. A child may be over- or under-responsive to sensory input; activity level may be either unusually high or unusually low; a child may be in constant motion or fatigue easily. In addition, some children may fluctuate between these extremes. Gross and/or fine motor coordination problems are also common when these three systems are dysfunctional and may result in speech/language delays and in academic under-achievement. Behaviorally, the child may become impulsive, easily distractible, and show a general lack of planning. Some children may also have difficulty adjusting to new situations and may react with frustration, aggression, or withdrawal.
Evaluation and treatment of basic sensory integrative processes is performed by occupational therapists and/or physical therapists. The therapist's general goals are: (1) to provide the child with sensory information which helps organize the central nervous system, (2) to assist the child in inhibiting and/or modulating sensory information, and (3) to assist the child in processing a more organized response to sensory stimuli.
Neurodevelopmental treatment (NDT) is a hands-on treatment approach used by physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists. NDT was developed to enhance the function of adults and children who have difficulty controlling movement as a result of neurological challenges, such as cerebral palsy, stroke, and head injury. This therapy uses guided or facilitated movements as a treatment strategy to ensure correlation of input from tactile, vestibular, and somatosensory receptors within the body
NDT was developed with the understanding that patients with brain injuries have a limited repertoire of movement patterns. During treatment interventions, repeated experience in movement ensures that a particular pattern is readily accessible for motor performance. The more a patient performs certain movements, the easier these movements becomes. Without NDT interventions, the patient likely will develop a limited set of movement patterns that he or she will apply to nearly all tasks. NDT should begin before such generalized movement synergies become hard-wired in the patient's brain.
Therapists trained in NDT have completed advanced training that enables them to properly assess and treat the variety of neuro-motor problems experienced by these individuals and help these individuals become as functional and independent as possible. NDT-trained therapists work collaboratively with patients, their families and caregivers, physicians, and other members of the rehabilitation team to develop and implement a comprehensive treatment program for each person that is based on scientific principles and current research.
Aquatic therapy refers to treatments and exercises performed in water for relaxation, fitness, physical rehabilitation, and other therapeutic benefit. Typically, a qualified aquatic therapist gives constant attendance to a person receiving treatment in a heated therapy pool.
Autism Intervention Therapy focuses on Engagement, Play and Social Communication with children experiencing Autism. The therapy plans are tailored depending on the current level of the child or adult. It also involves dealing with behavioral concerns and planning behavior intervention plans for the parents according to the child's need.
The More Than Words Program was designed specifically for parents of children ages 5 and under on the autism spectrum and with other social communication difficulties. Addressing the unique needs of these children, the program provides parents with the tools, strategies and support they need to help their children reach their full communication potential.
More Than Words does this by empowering you to help your child reach the following three goals:
Handwriting Without Tears uses multisensory, developmentally appropriate strategies to increase success with early writing skills. It is divided into 3 parts.
Writing Readiness (Kindergarten)
By playing, singing, and building letters, kindergarten students develop the important skills they need to print words, sentences, and paragraphs. Lessons address grip, letter and number recognition, and capital and number formation.
Printing (Grades 1-2)
The Handwriting Without Tears printing program in first and second grade develops strong printing skills with hands-on activities and lessons that integrate important language arts skills, including sentence, word, and paragraph composition. Second grade also includes an option to introduce cursive in the last quarter of the school year.
Cursive (Grades 3-5)
The Handwriting Without Tears cursive program teaches a clean, vertical style of cursive that is easy to learn, easy to read, and easy to write. Lessons include engaging and memorable activities for cursive mastery, and strategies for identifying and remediating your students writing and to keep them on track to reach cursive success!
Dennison created a series of Brain Gym movements to directly target and stimulate the brain to help a child reach their academic potential. The idea behind Brain Gym is to use physical movement to access different parts of the brain. Parents and teachers can use these types of movements to help their child or student based on behavior, comprehension or retention, organization, executive function, and communication.
PECS - Picture exchange communication system is a unique augmentative alternative communication intervention for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and related developmental disabilities. PECS is designed to teach functional communication skills with an initial focus on spontaneous communication within a social context. It can be used across ages and disability. Implementation of PECS also involves development of speech.
Social Thinking is a social skills curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner. The curriculum is intended for students with social learning disabilities, especially those with autistic spectrum conditions. Its main focus is on teaching students to think about how others perceive them.
Social thinking what individuals do when interacting with other people: namely, they think about them. Most people take social thinking for granted, as it is generally an intuitive process that considers the points of view, emotions, and intentions of others. In neurotypical people, social thinking is hard-wired neurologically at birth and learned intuitively from infancy. Children with autism spectrum disorders generally do not intuitively learn social information the way neurotypical children do. Those with ASD and related social learning challenges who are "higher functioning" need to be cognitively taught how to think socially and understand the use of related social skills.
While these challenges are commonly experienced by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (high-functioning), social communication disorder, Asperger's, ADHD, nonverbal learning disability (NLD) and similar diagnoses, children and adults experiencing social learning difficulties often have received no diagnosis.
Narrative practices are an approach which gives a sense of personal agency to individuals and strongly believes in the idea that "a problem is a problem and that the person is NOT a problem". It helps in externalizing the problem and making the skill and knowledge more visible to the individuals. It also helps them see their hopes and dreams through various innovative ways.
302, Mani Mahal, 11/21 Mattews Rd.,
Next to Bhupati Chambers,
Opera House, Mumbai - 400005
Maharashtra, India
