The MCI Approach & Our Services
Our Approach Is Customized To Meet Your Family’s Individual Needs.
“We need to work together to remove the stigma of unique learning styles in children and celebrate each child’s success.”
Comprehensive Assessments
School and home based evaluations in the foundational areas for reading, writing and math for children and adults. Find out your child’s strength’s and needs to establish a plan that’s right for your family. Customize in the areas fine and gross motor, visual motor, visual perceptual, oculo motor, behavior, sensory processing, handwriting, typing, executive functioning and more.
Sensory Integration Therapy
Sensory integration (SI) is a term that refers to the way the nervous system receives messages from the senses and turns them into appropriate motor and behavioral responses. Whether you are biting into a hamburger, riding a bicycle, or reading a book, your successful completion of the activity requires processing sensation, or “sensory integration.”
Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD, formerly known as “sensory integration dysfunction”) is a condition that exists when sensory signals don’t get organized into appropriate responses. Pioneering occupational therapist and neuroscientist A. Jean Ayres, PhD, likened SPD to a neurological “traffic jam” that prevents certain parts of the brain from receiving the information needed to interpret sensory information correctly.
Motor deficiencies, behavioral challenges, anxiety, depression, academic struggles, and other difficulties may result if the disorder is not treated effectively.
Self-Regulation Intervention
Self-regulation is a sub-construct of executive functioning, and is an area that can be improved through sensory integration therapy by addressing one’s ability to consistently access these higher-level brain functions, rather than remain in a frequent neurological state of “fight or flight.” Additionally, the use of social emotional curricula including the Alert Program, the Zones of Regulation, and Social Thinking can help improve these skills. Improving self-regulatory processes improves executive control. These are central to cognitive, linguistic, behavioral, and affective control, all of which are fundamental to learning and academic success.
Feeding Therapy Clinic
Generally, the children having difficulty with feeding demonstrates one or more of the following:
A limited food selection of less than 15 foods
Refusing one or more food groups
Aversion when presented with novel foods
Food jags; requires the same food to be presented at each meal
Diagnosis of a developmental delay
Oral motor abilities include the muscle movements of the mouth, lips, tongue, cheeks, and jaw. These muscles work together to suck, bite, crunch, chew, and lick. Oral motor skills are essential to effective eating and overall functioning. The child who has oral motor deficits may also demonstrate any of the following:
Low muscle tone
Poor body coordination and balance
Poor postural control
Difficulty crossing midline and using both sides of the body together
Poor hand-eye coordination
Poor body awareness
Difficulty with behavior management
Struggles with transitions
Problems with speech and language development
Without appropriate oral motor skills, a child may frequently gag or choke, drool, struggle to keep food down, poorly transition between foods, have difficulty sucking, chewing, and swallowing, and/or have picky eating habits.
Ocular Motor and
Visual Perceptual Skills
Ocular Motor Therapy is to identify and treat control and coordination of eye movements. This is not the same as visual acuity, or 20/20 vision, which is assessed by an optometrist. Ocular motor skills include visual tracking and pursuits, convergence, saccades and fluidly crossing midline in the vertical and horizontal planes. Additionally, our occupational therapists are trained to identify difficulties with visual perception which can include visual memory, spatial relationships, visual discrimination, figure ground, visual closure, and form constancy. Difficulties with ocular motor control and/or visual perception can impact many childhood activities, such as reading, writing, and motor development.
Individualized Home Program IHP
For many young people in today’s modern world, the list of demands they find themselves dealing with is endless.
From studies at school to managing expectations of their teachers, parents, and friends, to social skills and succeeding with their hobbies, their health, personal development and simply making sense of the world around them.
Every parent wants to see their child succeed, and no one wants to see them struggle. With so much advice and guidance available to support them through the difficult transitions of childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood, some of the concepts from coaching can also bring a lot of value when supporting young people.
Do you like the way IEP’s are written for schools because of the structure, ability to take data and to remain focused on the goal at hand? As a team we will prioritize goals based on development and need. The goals will be attainable, data driven, and will be presented in a manner that encourages consistency. These goals can be home based or can be in conjunction with IEP’s, 504’s, or school based needs. We can assist you in finding accommodations and services for both home and school.
Preschool Assessment & Teacher Training
We work on location to observe and give a standard assessment of children in preschool classrooms. By offering therapy on-site and preschool teacher training, we can identify and offer solutions before they have issues in a kindergarten classroom.
Handwriting
Help
“Handwriting Without Tears” is a MUST HAVE program designed by Occupational Therapists to improve fine motor, visual perception, and eye-hand coordination skills which impact a child’s handwriting abilities.
This program is a simple, proven successful, user-friendly resource which WILL improve your child’s letter formation, speed, neatness and legibility in handwriting skills.
This program uses a consistent, easy to follow, multi-sensory approach and is very successful with the 2-lined method to teach proper letter formation.
Gross and Fine Motor Development
Fine motor skills, or coordination of the small muscles of the hands and fingers, are involved in many important activities of children’s daily lives. These skills are required for dressing, writing, coloring, cutting, playing with toys, feeding, etc. Children who are experiencing difficulties with fine motor skills may present with difficulty with or avoidance of any of these tasks, impacting their participation in age-appropriate activities.
Gross motor skills involve coordinated movement of the large muscles of the body (such as arms, legs, and core muscles). They are involved in many childhood activities, such as crawling, walking, running, climbing, jumping, ball skills, and more complex sports or physical activities. For most individuals, gross motor skills develop through practice and repetition. However, some children have underlying challenges with core strength, muscle tone, or the way their brain and body communicate with each other, which can impact gross motor development.
Children who present with gross or fine motor difficulties or delays are at risk for further difficulties with sitting still, fine motor development, endurance and attention, and academic skills. Children who present with gross motor delays or difficulties with gross motor skills, as well as children who skip motor milestones or display atypical motor development, can benefit from occupational therapy evaluation and treatment to address a variety of underlying factors, including their sensory processing, that may be impacting their gross motor abilities.
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Self Care
Skills
From an occupational therapy perspective, self-care includes activities such as personal care (bathing, toileting, dressing, feeding), functional mobility, and community management (grocery shopping, driving, taking public transportation, managing finances).
We assist children and adults of all ages become independent in all areas of daily living to encourage confidence, safety, and the ability to take care of themselves.
Aromatherapy
Medical grade essential oils can shift a child’s behavior, sleep patterns and improve abilities to focus, attend, and learn. We use these oils during some sessions and find that it works! Additional oils may be purchased from our Resources page.
The Listening Program (TLP)
Pediatric OT helps children with unique learning styles. I.e., those who may struggle with various physical, mental and cognitive activities and tasks, grow, learn and interact more successfully in their daily lives: at school, at home, in sports, on the playground, and in the community-at-large. Find out more on our Resources page.