Our Services ——

Providing Care for All of Your Pediatric Therapy Needs

Occupational Therapy

OT Connection specializes in Pediatric Occupational Therapy services that support and promote the achievement of independence with activities of daily living; the integration of sensory systems; self-regulation skills; upper body strength and function; feeding skills; handwriting skills; motor planning and praxis; body awareness and environment safety; bilateral coordination skills and balance; visual motor and visual perceptual skills; facilitation of developmental milestones and age-appropriate fine motor skills.

The Pediatric Occupational Therapist is trained to provide skilled intervention to infants, toddlers, children, and adolescents with disorders that effect development of motor and behavioral skills. Our team of therapists are highly skilled, state licensed, and nationally certified.

Our Expertise:

  • Fine and Gross Motor Skills Development:
  • Upper body and fine motor strengthening-pencil grasp, scissor use and more
  • Neurodevelopmental Facilitation Techniques
  • Bilateral coordination skills & balance
  • Activities of daily living training include: dressing, feeding, grooming, fastener manipulation,  utensil use, etc.
  • Visual Motor Integration/Visual Perceptual Skills
  • Handwriting training (utilizing the Handwriting Without Tears Program
  • Ocular Motility Skills
  • Vision Therapy (Provided with training and collaboration with several Austin area Developmental Optometrists)
  • Core-Strengthening/Postural Control

Sensory Integration Techniques:

  • Attention & Organizational Skills
  • Motor Planning & Praxis
  • Body Perception/Awareness in Space
  • Frustration Tolerance/Coping Strategies
  • Sensory Defensiveness-auditory/tactile sensitivities
  • Self-esteem, social skills, peer interactions, challenging behavior
  • Feeding Aversion and oral defensiveness
  • Astronaut Training-Sound activated visual/vestibular  rehabilitation technique
  • Therapeutic Listening program through Vital Links
  • Self-Regulation

Oral Motor/Oral Sensory Development:

  • Feeding skills
  • Oral Aversion / Hypersensitivities
  • Hypotonia/Hypertonia
  • Nippling/latching skills for breastfeeding moms

Common Diagnostic categories include:

  • Developmental Delay
  • Sensory Integration Dysfunction/Sensory Processing Disorder
  • Feeding Aversion/Oral Motor Difficulties
  • Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • Cerebral Palsy and Neuromuscular Disorders
  • Down Syndrome
  • Learning Disabilities/Dysgraphia

Commonly used occupational therapy terms:

AbAdaptive Response: An action that is appropriate and successful in meeting some environmental demand.Adaptive responses demonstrate adequate sensory integration and drive all learning and social interactions.

Auditory: Language processing skills: the abilities of listening and verbally communicating, acquired as onhears and perceives sounds and interacts with the environment.

Auditory Perception: The ability to receive, identify, discriminate, understand and respond to sounds.

Bilateral Coordination: The ability to use both sides of the body together in a smooth, simultaneous, andcoordinated manner.

Bilateral Integration: The neurological process of integrating sensations from both body sides; the foundation for bilateral coordination.

Binocularity (Binocular Vision; Eye Teaming): Forming a single visual image from two images that the eyes separately record.

Body Awareness: The mental picture of one’s own body parts, where they are, how they interrelate, and how they move.

Cocontraction: All muscle groups surrounding a joint contracting and “working” together to provide that joint stability resulting in the ability to maintain a position.

Depth Perception: The ability to see objects in three dimensions and to judge relative distances between objects, or between oneself and objects.

Directionality: The awareness of right/left, forward/back, and up/down, and the ability to move oneself in those directions.

Discriminative System: The component of a sensory system that allows one to distinguish differences among stimuli. This system is not innate but develops with time and practice.

Dyspraxia: Deficient motor planning that is often related to a decrease in sensory processing.

Eye-Hand Coordination: The efficient teamwork of the eyes and hands, necessary for activities such as playing with toys, dressing, and writing.

Equilibrium: A term used to mean balance.

Extension: A straightening action of a joint (neck, back, arms, legs).

Fight-Or-Flight Response: The instinctive reaction to defend oneself from real or perceived danger by becoming aggressive or by withdrawing.

Figure-Ground Perception: The ability to perceive a figure in the foreground from a rival background.

Fine Motor: Referring to movement of the muscles in the fingers, toes, eyes and tongue.

Fine Motor Skills: The skilled use of one’s hands. It is the ability to move the hands and fingers in a smooth, precise and controlled manner. Fine motor control is essential for efficient handling of classroom tools and materials. It may also be referred to as dexterity.

Fixation: Aiming one’s eye at an object or shifting one’s gaze from one object to another.

Flexion: A bending action of a joint or a pulling in of a body part.

Focusing: Accommodating one’s vision smoothly between near and distant objects.

Form Constancy: Recognition of a shape regardless of its size, position, or texture.

 

AbAdaptive Response: An action that is appropriate and successful in meeting some environmental demand.Adaptive responses demonstrate adequate sensory integration and drive all learning and social interactions.

Auditory: Language processing skills: the abilities of listening and verbally communicating, acquired as onhears and perceives sounds and interacts with the environment.

Auditory Perception: The ability to receive, identify, discriminate, understand and respond to sounds.

Bilateral Coordination: The ability to use both sides of the body together in a smooth, simultaneous, andcoordinated manner.

Bilateral Integration: The neurological process of integrating sensations from both body sides; the foundation for bilateral coordination.

Binocularity (Binocular Vision; Eye Teaming): Forming a single visual image from two images that the eyes separately record.

Body Awareness: The mental picture of one’s own body parts, where they are, how they interrelate, and how they move.

Cocontraction: All muscle groups surrounding a joint contracting and “working” together to provide that joint stability resulting in the ability to maintain a position.

Depth Perception: The ability to see objects in three dimensions and to judge relative distances between objects, or between oneself and objects.

Directionality: The awareness of right/left, forward/back, and up/down, and the ability to move oneself in those directions.

Discriminative System: The component of a sensory system that allows one to distinguish differences among stimuli. This system is not innate but develops with time and practice.

Dyspraxia: Deficient motor planning that is often related to a decrease in sensory processing.

Eye-Hand Coordination: The efficient teamwork of the eyes and hands, necessary for activities such as playing with toys, dressing, and writing.

Equilibrium: A term used to mean balance.

Extension: A straightening action of a joint (neck, back, arms, legs).

Fight-Or-Flight Response: The instinctive reaction to defend oneself from real or perceived danger by becoming aggressive or by withdrawing.

Figure-Ground Perception: The ability to perceive a figure in the foreground from a rival background.

Fine Motor: Referring to movement of the muscles in the fingers, toes, eyes and tongue.

Fine Motor Skills: The skilled use of one’s hands. It is the ability to move the hands and fingers in a smooth, precise and controlled manner. Fine motor control is essential for efficient handling of classroom tools and materials. It may also be referred to as dexterity.

Fixation: Aiming one’s eye at an object or shifting one’s gaze from one object to another.

Flexion: A bending action of a joint or a pulling in of a body part.

Focusing: Accommodating one’s vision smoothly between near and distant objects.

Form Constancy: Recognition of a shape regardless of its size, position, or texture.

 

AbAdaptive Response: An action that is appropriate and successful in meeting some environmental demand.Adaptive responses demonstrate adequate sensory integration and drive all learning and social interactions.

Auditory: Language processing skills: the abilities of listening and verbally communicating, acquired as onhears and perceives sounds and interacts with the environment.

Auditory Perception: The ability to receive, identify, discriminate, understand and respond to sounds.

Bilateral Coordination: The ability to use both sides of the body together in a smooth, simultaneous, andcoordinated manner.

Bilateral Integration: The neurological process of integrating sensations from both body sides; the foundation for bilateral coordination.

Binocularity (Binocular Vision; Eye Teaming): Forming a single visual image from two images that the eyes separately record.

Body Awareness: The mental picture of one’s own body parts, where they are, how they interrelate, and how they move.

Cocontraction: All muscle groups surrounding a joint contracting and “working” together to provide that joint stability resulting in the ability to maintain a position.

Depth Perception: The ability to see objects in three dimensions and to judge relative distances between objects, or between oneself and objects.

Directionality: The awareness of right/left, forward/back, and up/down, and the ability to move oneself in those directions.

Discriminative System: The component of a sensory system that allows one to distinguish differences among stimuli. This system is not innate but develops with time and practice.

Dyspraxia: Deficient motor planning that is often related to a decrease in sensory processing.

Eye-Hand Coordination: The efficient teamwork of the eyes and hands, necessary for activities such as playing with toys, dressing, and writing.

Equilibrium: A term used to mean balance.

Extension: A straightening action of a joint (neck, back, arms, legs).

Fight-Or-Flight Response: The instinctive reaction to defend oneself from real or perceived danger by becoming aggressive or by withdrawing.

Figure-Ground Perception: The ability to perceive a figure in the foreground from a rival background.

Fine Motor: Referring to movement of the muscles in the fingers, toes, eyes and tongue.

Fine Motor Skills: The skilled use of one’s hands. It is the ability to move the hands and fingers in a smooth, precise and controlled manner. Fine motor control is essential for efficient handling of classroom tools and materials. It may also be referred to as dexterity.

Fixation: Aiming one’s eye at an object or shifting one’s gaze from one object to another.

Flexion: A bending action of a joint or a pulling in of a body part.

Focusing: Accommodating one’s vision smoothly between near and distant objects.

Form Constancy: Recognition of a shape regardless of its size, position, or texture.