As I send my youngest child, Adam, off to college, I remember my first days as a pediatric occupational therapist when he was one and barely walking. I spent those early years learning how to treat young children, watching my son obtain milestones that other children struggled to achieve. Now as a “seasoned” therapist, I have the…
Kid’s Creek has partnered with our local Johns Creek Kroger store to help promote community integration with our teens. The Leaders in Training experience promotes real life engagements in a safe and controlled environment. Three teenagers from the Kid’s Creek family recently completed the week long program. Every day they learned something new. Their final task was…
There are many things to love about traveling to another country. Learning about different cultures is very exciting, because there is always something new to discover. Yet, what I like more is identifying the similarities – it is always fascinating to find out about what makes us the same across different cultures. I recently had…
What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “speech therapy”? Many people think first of children who stutter or mispronounce words (like when “sister” becomes “thith-ter”), and may imagine that speech therapy involves hours and hours of word repetition until they get it “right” and graduate. But in truth, speech therapy is much more.…
Things I love about my profession include getting to hear a child’s first word, seeing the “light bulb moment” when a child has figured out how to do something that was really difficult for them, or being able to dismiss a child because they have mastered all goals (even though it makes me sad at the same time). These are…
There was a single moment when I “fell in love” with being a therapist. I was in college, working with my very first patient. He was two years old and had very few words. I had been given family pictures to work with, so along with other words, I worked diligently on teaching him to say “Daddy.” At the…
Have you ever gotten a “crick” in your neck (or back)? If you have, then you probably noticed that though the pain and restricted movement may have been specific to one small area, it affected your body in other ways. – you may have walked differently or been more careful about turning your body. When…
Have you ever seen children wearing headphones in a therapy clinic? Did you wonder what they were doing? There’s a good chance they were using a “listening” (or “sound”) program as part of their occupational therapy. Listening programs are used in treating autism, addressing sensory, learning, and attention deficiencies, and optimizing performance. What is a “listening program?”…
One of the most common questions I hear from parents is “How do I respond to my child that stutters?” Many parents worry that if they attract attention to their child’s stutter it may get worse. Let me put your mind at ease: stuttering is neurologically based and does not develop from an outside influence, so you…
Do you ever feel like there is a missing piece in your child’s language development, especially in the areas of reading and listening comprehension? Have you been unable to find the key to unlock the mystery of why he continues to experience difficulty despite therapy, extra help, and tutoring? If so, then keep reading –…