We offer a wide range of pediatric and adolescent services to meet the unique needs of children and their families.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational Therapy services are provided to help children who have difficulties in the areas of sensory processing, motor planning, visual-motor skills, and motor coordination. Our OT sessions target improving a child's ability to participate in play, learning, and self-help skills. We use sensory motor play in order to help build a child's self-confidence. We want children to confidently explore their environment, whether that's a toddler exploring toys, a child exploring a fun park or playground or a child confidently sitting in school cutting and coloring. Pediatric occupational therapists work on helping people in their occupations and the "occupation" of a child after-all is play, school, and self-help skills!
Speech-Language Therapy
Speech-Language Therapy services are provided to help children with speech and language disorders or delays. Some children may only need pediatric speech-language services in order to target articulation skills or language skills necessary for reading, writing and being successful in school. Some children may need speech-language services in order to help in the beginning stages of communication; using their voice, using gestures, using eye gaze and facial expressions in order to begin to communicate needs, wants, thoughts and ideas. Some children may need to use signs, pictures or Augmentative and Alternative Communication devices to communicate, such as an application on an iPad. Other children may need help expressing their ideas in an organized manner so they can expand on their ideas during play with family or with friends. We can meet the needs of the child and family where they are and help them expand on their strengths while supporting and working through areas of weakness.
Physical Therapy
Pediatric Physical Therapy services are provided to assist each child in reaching their full potential to function independently and actively participate in home, school and their community. Our PT sessions work on using natural motivators and games to help a child move confidently through their environment, work on strengthening, motor learning, sequencing, motor endurance, balance and coordination, postural correction and endurance, improving upon running and walking patterns, recreation, play and leisure. PT also helps a child to reach motor milestones which are critical for higher executive functioning in other areas of development. Services to aid in toilet training, nighttime/daytime wetting and constipation are also available. Physical Therapy focuses on helping families to reach functional motor goals to allow for independent and confident exploration of a child’s day to day environment and relationship with family and peers.
Psychological Services
Psychological services are provided to support the mental health and wellbeing of children and adolescents, and at times for parents. Mental health concerns such as fears, anxiety, traumatic experiences, depression, attention and social challenges can make it difficult for children and adolescents to succeed socially, physically, and academically. Parents and guardians play a critical role in the wellbeing of children and are encouraged to be involved in treatment. Depending on the age of the child, therapeutic modalities can include expressive interventions such as play and art, interpersonal and cognitive/behavioral therapies, and EMDR.
Individualized Academic Instruction
Tutoring services are provided to help children who have difficulties in phonological component abilities, reading comprehension, writing, and spelling. Our specialized tutoring and individualized instruction sessions target accurate word recognition, reading comprehension, fluent word recognition, poor spelling, poor decoding, visual memory, recognizing sameness/difference of phonemes, discriminating the identity, number and order of sounds within words, blending sounds, word attack, spelling, and syllabication. The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program for Reading, Spelling, and Speech (LiPS), Orton Gillingham, and/or Visualizing and Verbalizing Programs are offered to individuals and small groups to help address children who are struggling in school and those with delays in reading, writing, comprehension, and spelling as well as children and teens diagnosed with dyslexia, specific learning disability, ADHD, or Executive Functioning delays. In our experience difficulties in school can be hard on a child's self esteem, confidence, and behavior and we take the whole child approach in order to be successful. Within our individualized academic instruction we continue to use relationships and follow the child’s interests in order to guide instruction.
Executive Functioning Services
Executive functioning coaching services are provided to help children and teens who have difficulties with executive functioning skills. Executive functioning skills include a person’s ability to self-regulate, plan, organize, shift, execute and manage time as well as the ability to “see” the future or perform a mental dress rehearsal. Children with ADHD, sensory processing disorder and diagnosed learning disabilities, including developmental language disorder, often demonstrate difficulties with executive functioning. Executive functioning skills are necessary for success in school and later career success. Executive functioning skills play a huge role in social competence and self-regulation. Our services target improving organizational skills, nonverbal working memory, situational awareness, task planning, task executing, and self- monitoring. We teach children and teens strategies that are easy to use and can be used successfully for a lifetime.
Feeding Therapy
The SOS (Sequential Oral Sensory) Approach to Feeding program is offered to individuals and small groups to help address children with problematic feeding behaviors. The SOS Approach uses a whole child approach to assess organ systems, muscles, development, sensory, oral-motor, learning/behavior, cognition, nutrition and environment. The SOS Approach focuses on increasing a child's comfort level by allowing exploration of food in a fun, playful, non-stressful way. We often work together with feeding groups so that sensory needs, fine motor needs and oral- motor needs can be targeted at the same time when working on feeding. In our experience feeding is such a complex issue and takes a whole child approach in order to be successful.
AAC Clinic
At KC:DT we believe every person deserves to communicate their thoughts, ideas, and needs. We are proud to offer comprehensive Augmentative and Alternative Communication evaluations that include follow up coaching and AAC modification services.
How It Works:
We set up an evaluation and use our library of trial devices to match best to each individual
We submit an evaluation, along with any other needed paperwork, to the insurance carrier
We set up follow up in person and/or teletherapy coaching services to increase knowledge and empower families
Music Therapy
Music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program (American Music Therapy Association, 2005). Music therapy sessions target and help support a wide variety of goals like communication, fine motor, academic support, social/emotional, leisure, executive functioning, and activities of daily living to name a few! Music therapy sessions may look like singing together, playing instruments, making up songs, playing musical games, or moving to music depending on what an individual is working on. The key is that music works as a motivating and engaging tool to help students and families meet their goals and generalize those skills to real-life situations.
Lactation Services
What is a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC)?
The CLC certification identifies a professional in lactation counseling who has demonstrated the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities to provide breastfeeding counseling and management support to families who are thinking about breastfeeding or who have questions or problems during the course of breastfeeding/lactation.
Lactation Centered Care at KC:DT
Services provided will be aimed at supporting and reaching the goals of the family! There are no hidden agendas or a ‘schedule’ of events! Lactation services strive to support the breastfeeding journey in a hands off and supportive approach. We can provide support with any lactation issues that may arise such as milk supply, sore nipples, latch, prenatal support, transitions back to work/school, combination feeding (breastmilk and formula), and much more! Consultations can be done in home or in either KC:DT clinic.
Parent Training and Coaching
Parent training and coaching are very important to us. We want parents to feel successful in their interactions with their children. Our goal is to help parents on this journey wherever they are, overcoming any obstacles that get in their way. We want to be partners with parents, providing them with our professional knowledge while honoring them as experts on their child.
DIR/Floortime
We follow the DIR/Floortime® approach to pediatric therapy. This means we consider the child's level of development, individual differences, and relationships with assessing and planning treatment. Engagement is always at the center of our work with children. We strive to help parents better understand their child's individual differences including sensory processing, motor planning, and language skills.
Social Groups
Social groups, preschool play groups and therapeutic dyads are offered to work on a child's ability to pay attention to friends, include friend's ideas into play, work together as a team, try new skills in a more complex environment and to have fun! We think groups should be tailored around the needs of each individual child so we often make groups from children we are already seeing who we know would be good fits with one another, playing on each other's strengths and weaknesses. For example we might pair together a child who has a hard time coming up with ideas but can stick with an idea for a long time and expand on given ideas with a child who has a lot of ideas but has a hard time staying with and expanding on an idea. The goal of some of our groups is to help support perspective taking including the ability of children to take in the thoughts, emotions and intentions of the other people they are interacting with.
Consulting Services
We also offer consultation, contract support services and collaboration to daycares, private schools, public schools and community programs. We believe in a collaborative team approach and want to help children in all their natural environments. We offer preschool and kindergarten screenings, follow-up assessment and evaluation and treatment to facilities that do not have on site occupational and speech-language therapists. We are always happy to provide professional development and parent in-services.