Occupational Therapy with Strong Roots:
Growing your Child’s Body and Brain through PLAY!
What does Occupational Therapy with Strong Roots look like?
Occupational therapists empower individuals to engage in activities that are meaningful to them. For children, these activities encompass play, learning, self-care skills, and much more. When a child faces challenges in these areas, occupational therapy (OT) can provide essential support!
Skill Areas We May Address Include:
Self-regulation & executive function skills (such as attention, emotional regulation, impulse control)
Sensory processing including awareness of internal cues (interoception)
Integration of primitive reflexes which underlie and impact a wide variety of skill areas including emotional regulation, sensory sensitivities, coordination for eyes, hands and body, toileting and more. Mary is Reflex Integration through Play certified!
Social interaction and play skills
Fine, visual, and gross motor coordination including handwriting
Self-care skills
All sessions are crafted to be joyful, play-based, and engaging for both the child and caregiver, while incorporating research-based interventions to foster progress together.
Who Can Benefit?
Mary has extensive experience working with children with attention struggles, autism, learning difficulties, sensory processing challenges, fine or visual motor delays, handwriting challenges, and more. Additionally, all children can engage in and gain from enrichment opportunities.
Our Core Principles for Therapy
Personalized Collaboration
Ever left a therapy session feeling like a spectator? At Strong Roots, therapy is a collaborative journey, not a mystery.
We offer a personal and transparent approach to boosting your child’s skills for participating in life through therapy that builds meaningful connections and tailored strategies to fit your child’s needs as well as family dynamics and desired goals. Parents actively participate, learning alongside their children, supporting their growth. We recognize you as a vital part of your child’s development.
Concierge Therapy
Many clinics offer sessions. Strong Roots also offers a relationship. With our connection-focused concierge therapy approach, there’s never a “middle-man” between you and your child’s therapist at any step in the therapeutic process, nor will you bounce around between different therapists.
Our commitment to individualized support extends beyond sessions, offering rapid same-day responses and optional video-based coaching for deeper exploration of your questions. In addition, when needed your therapist can be available to join your child’s school support-staff for additional coaching opportunities.
By keeping our caseload small, we ensure you and your child are active participants on a team invested in your journey.
Identifying “Root Causes”
Our therapy uses a "big picture" lens, uncovering root causes beneath immediate challenges. Think of it like the base of a pyramid; foundational skills are crucial for everything else to thrive. Are you a caregiver or teacher noticing a child struggling to sit still, focus, or interact appropriately? Perhaps there's a difficulty with handwriting? These are signals pointing to underlying sensory, motor, or neurodevelopmental areas needing attention.
By reframing these observations, we offer solutions, hope, and support. We believe everyone has growth potential, and sometimes all it takes is a tailored approach to boost those root skills. Let us partner with you on this journey, ensuring your needs are met with care and expertise.
Strengthening the Pyramid for Success!
What could be the underlying causes of a child's behavioral or learning difficulties? At Strong Roots, our occupational therapists begins the investigative process with the Pyramid of Learning, a concept developed by Taylor & Trott (1991).
When the foundational skills at the base of this pyramid are not fully developed, children expend significantly more effort to compensate for these essential abilities, which others perform instinctively. Consequently, achieving higher-level skills becomes much more challenging.
For instance, if a child often experiences emotional "meltdowns," this could be linked to an immature Moro reflex or an overly sensitive sensory system. Likewise, a child facing challenges with reading might exhibit an unintegrated ATNR reflex, visual processing or oculomotor issues that hinder their eye tracking abilities.
By addressing primitive reflexes and sensory processing needs first through collaborative teamwork with the family, we can pave the way together for smoother and more efficient development of higher-level skills.
The Power of Play in Occupational Therapy
Play serves as a meaningful way to engage with a child and guide them toward enhanced functioning. Occupational therapists (OTs) utilize play as a motivating intervention strategy, which research indicates brings numerous advantages for child development, including improvements in motor and sensory skills as well as self-regulation. By incorporating play, we link the skills being practiced to real-life situations, fostering children's growth and development.
Tailoring Activities for Success
During OT sessions, we employ play within a framework that considers how to adapt each activity to support the child's strengths and needs. This involves subtly adjusting the presentation, materials, or interaction style to create a “just-right challenge” that can encourage the necessary growth toward achieving treatment goals.
Ready to feel Supported?
Get to Know Our Therapist
Connect by scheduling a complimentary Discovery call which you can easily book from our Landing Page Scheduler. Simply select “Book an Appointment” at the provided link. Together, we can discuss the next steps for exploring the therapy options that suit your needs.
If available times don’t suit your schedule, reach out by phone or email for additional options.
Contact Us
One more option to connect — complete the form to hear back via phone or email!
Please either leave your phone number in the message box here for return contact by phone or save our email address (mary@strongrootskids.com) in your “safe list” to ensure you receive the reply.
