About Rural Children's Therapy
Rural Children's Therapy
Paediatric Occupational Therapy
Rural Children’s Therapy understands that every family’s routine, availability and commitments looks different. Rural Children’s Therapy provides therapy before, during and after school times. This means your school aged child can still do a hobby after-school without it impacting on their ability to have therapy.
Unlike other therapy services which require you to lock-in services for a full year, Rural Children’s Therapy works on the school terms calendar. Depending on your child’s, funding they can receive up to 3 terms of Therapy per year. Using this model means your child’s goals are able to be worked on more intensively, compared to other providers that only offers sessions once every few weeks. For example, if you are wanting to work on your child’s handwriting, instead of having 1 hour session every 2-3 weeks, Rural Children’s Therapy would aim to have the child receive 2-3, 30 minutes session per week dedicated to handwriting.
Rural Children's Therapy understands that your child may require support from other allied health professionals (eg. Speech Pathologists). Therefore, we do not require you to allocate all your budget to us, but encourage you to leave funds for other services as required.
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Rural Children's Therapy undersands that this therapy model is not a one size fits all and that same families will need a hybrid of ongoing and intensive. Rural Children's Therapy will also offer weekly or fortnightly appointments for children who require ongoing appointment to achieve their goals. Limited spaces are available for year round weekly appointments.
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Rural Children’s Therapy provides a range of services delivery, including:
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1-on-1 Therapy with the Child (school aged*)
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Therapy with the Child and Parent involved
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Parent Coaching
Rural Children’s Therapy current hours are:
Monday: 8:30am - 5:00pm
Tuesday: 8:30am - 6:00pm
Wednesday 8:00am - 6:00pm
Thursday 8:00am - 6:00pm
Friday 3:30pm - 5:00pm
*Please note these are the Therapy hours provided by our Two Occupational Therapists combined. Some of the time slots listed above are currently filled.
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Rural Children’s Therapy is currently not a registered NDIS provider, therefore we are only able to provide services to clients who are self-managed or plan-managed.
Occupational Therapy Services
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Handwriting
Handwriting is an important skill that is used in our everyday life. It is important in your child's development of reading, spelling, visual tracking, fine motor skills and ability to engage in education/academic studies. Occupational Therapist can support with:
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Letter reversal
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Letter formation
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Pencil grip and control
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Legibility, letter size and line placement
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Handwriting speed
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Learning cursive handwriting
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Gross Motor Skills
Gross Motor Skills involve the larger muscles of the body. Gross Motor Skills are required for balance, coordination, core strength, body awareness, muscular strength and endurance. All of these skills are required to be able to walk, run, jump, ride a bike, play on a playground etc.
Poor gross motor skills can also affect handwriting, ability to play, fine motor skills and ability to complete self care tasks. Occupational Therapist can support with:
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Assessment of gross motor skills
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Activities to support development of gross motor skills
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Support with achieving a specific gross motor skills eg. Learning to ride a bike
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Sensory Processing
Believe it or not everyone has different sensory needs. Personally I find it way to overstimulating to be at a concert with flashing lights and loud music, however others do not find it overstimulating or for some it's relaxing. This is the same for your child, things that you may feel like don't smell, or isn’t too loud for you, may be overstimulating for them. The best way to describe sensory needs is to say that, everyone has a different cup size (S, M, L). A clock might be ticking in background, you may not noticed that sound at all as you have a medium size cup so it take a few hours before you notice it. Your child on the other hand may have a small cup, and when it comes to background noises, instead of taking hours for your child to notice it and his cup to overflow, it may be minutes. Children don’t always know how to express their sensory needs which may make them react negatively to what we think is for no reason at all. Rural Children's Therapy can help with:
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Assessment and report of the Child's Sensory needs
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Customised strategy to meet your child’s needs
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Letter of recommendations for NDIS for purchase of low cost sensory products ( eg. Noise cancelling headphones)
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Fine Motor Skills
Fine Motor Skills are needed for so many activities that your child does everyday. This includes handwriting, dressing, opening their lunch box, playing with their toys, picking up food with their hands or cutlery, etc. Fine motor skills are an essential skill for a child to learn, as we rely on their fine motor skills throughout our adult lives. This includes to prepare a meal, use a phone/device, pay for items, tying hair up, etc. The Occupational Therapist can support your child with:
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Using cutlery
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Cutting, drawing
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Tying shoelaces
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Playing with small items
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Typing on a keyboard
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Using zips and buttons
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Play
Play is one of the most important occupations a young child has. Play supports the development of cognitive function, problem solving, social skills, literacy, independence, confidence, fine and gross motor skills. Occupational Therapist can support you/your child with:
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Learning how to play with your child
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Teaching the child how to play
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Learning new skills through play
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How to use play to encourage achievement of other skills
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Self-Care Tasks
Self-Care skills are part of a child's daily living. They consist of activities that allow the child's independence with hygiene tasks. Children with additional needs may require additional training and support to complete some of these self care tasks. Occupational Therapist can support with:
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Dressing
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Toileting
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Washing hands
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Brushing teeth or hair
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Making breakfast or basic meals
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Bathing or showering
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Sleep
Sleep is such an important part of a child's occupational. Insufficient sleep can result in reduced concentration, negatively impacting their ability to regulate their emotions, academic achievement, and ability to achieve their other NDIS goals. Rural Children's Therapy can support with:
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Identify sensory needs that may be impacting sleep.
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Support family to make a sleep routine.
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Support family to implement good sleep hygiene.
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Assessments & Reports
Rural Children's Therapy believes in the importance of assessments and outcomes measures. The NDIS often require evidence that the therapy is effective as well as assessments to support future NDIS funding. Assessments and outcome measures are completed before, during and after receiving therapy from Rural Children's Therapy to track progress.
Please note only assessments the child requires will be completed, eg. if you are not wanting to work on handwriting then the DASH will not be completed.
Please contact us to see if we can facilitate the assessment.
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Feeding
​Learning to eat a variety of foods can be very tricky for some children, especially if they have oral sensitivity. Do you feel like your child has the same 3 food groups as Elf? Candy Cane, Candy corn and syrup? If so, you are not alone, many children with additional needs gravitate towards sugary food and have a very restricted diet. Rural children therapy offers services towards:
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Increasing the variety of food the child will eat
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Making meal time fun
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Getting the child to sit at the table
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Coping with different foods tastes and smells
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At present Rural Children's Therapy does not have the expertise or experience to support children with feeding tubes or children with swallowing concerns.
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