Services

Following an initial assessment, I support you to create therapy goals. Therapy sessions will then be tailored based on these goals. Skills are practised and developed in the child’s home or school environment in which they occur. 

Caregivers and siblings are encouraged to be involved in therapy sessions.  

Skill development is embedded into daily routines to promote naturally occurring practice. 

You are in control of the frequency of therapy. You can choose either 45 minute or 1 hour therapy sessions, and whether these will occur weekly, fortnightly, monthly or booked as required.

Creating Abilities supports many areas of development including:

• Hand skills
• Gross motor skills
• Learning
• Emotional & self-regulation
• Play and social skills
• Mealtimes
• Toileting

Fine motor skills are fundamental for many daily activities including self-care, play and academic tasks.

Creating Abilities can support:

• Children to learn how to explore objects with their hands
• Grasping, manipulating, and repositioning objects for use
• Establishing a hand dominance
• Overcoming awkward or immature pencil grip 
• Drawing, colouring, cutting skills 
• Improving handwriting
• Developing functional hand skills e.g. coordinating cutlery, opening packets, tying shoelace, doing buttons and zips

Gross motor skills involve large muscle groups, required for holding postures (standing/sitting), and walking, running, jumping, and engaging in many other self-care, play and leisure/sports activities.

Creating Abilities can support:

• Development of early gross motor milestones (learning to roll, sit, crawl, walk) 
• Postural stability, strength, endurance, and balance impacting on daily activities e.g. dressing, maintaining seated posture 
• Children who appear "clumsy" or "uncoordinated" due to - difficulties with  bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination, poor spatial and body awareness, difficulties with motor planning, sequencing and coordinating timing of actions (praxis)

Learning relies heavily on our executive functioning, memory and thinking abilities. 

Creating Abilities support many children who:

• Behave impulsively without thinking about consequences
• Have difficulty following instructions
• Take a long time to start or finish tasks 
• Forget previously learnt information
• Have poor planning and organisational skills to enable task completion
• Have difficulty putting it all together to pay attention, manage emotions, and manage behaviour to enable learning 

Sensory processing and modulation refers to the way in which we receive and understand sensory information, and then how we use and respond to this sensory information. Each child does this in a unique way and this will influence how they behave and respond to everyday situations. 

Creating Abilities can support:

• Managing MELTDOWNS or BIG emotional reactions
• Teaching self-regulation 
• Children who OVER or UNDER react to specific sensory input
• Attention and concentration difficulties. 
• Children with difficulties transitioning from one activity to another
• Dealing with big reactions triggered by a change in routine/plans
• Relaxation and reducing stress

Through play, children learn about their world, and learn to engage with others.

However, play is complex and not all children know how to play.

Creating Abilities can support children in learning to play:

• Developing the ability to engage with others
• Knowing how to play with toys, using creativity (pretending), logical play sequences, and story telling through play
• Sharing and turn taking
• Understanding and expressing feelings
• Understanding social rules
• Making and keeping friends
• Problem solving, collaborating, and cooperating with others

Mealtimes can be incredibly challenging and stressful.  

Creating Abilities use the Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) approach to support fussy eaters and problem feeders, aiming to:

• Create positive mealtimes 
• Reduce stress at mealtimes
• Foster positive relationships with food
• Assist your child to explore more food tastes, and textures
• Ultimately increase the number of foods they accept

Toileting challenges can be very frustrating, emotionally draining, time-consuming and can have a huge social-emotional impact on your child over time.   

Creating Abilities specialise in:

• Toilet training
• Management of chronic constipation and soiling
• Management of bedwetting

Creating Abilities works with you to:

• Understand why your child is having toileting difficulties 
• Create realistic expectations and a positive approach
• Support the establishment of healthy bladder and bowel habits
• Create an action plan on how best to support your child’s continence
• Support you and your family to put the plan into action and be consistent
• Identify and troubleshoot challenges that may arise

It is recommended you book a GP appointment and request a bladder and bowel assessment prior to your Occupational Therapy toileting assessment with me.