Pediatric Occupational Therapy

Our pediatric program focuses on understanding the sensory and motor developmental processes that build the neurological foundation for essential physical, emotional, and cognitive milestones. These milestones are crucial for developing academic abilities, social skills, and life management.

At Foundations, we go beyond addressing diagnosed deficits. Instead, we evaluate your child's overall functional abilities to identify and target foundational factors. Our goal is to promote holistic integration of the mind and body, enabling long-term growth and success—not just addressing surface-level challenges.

BECOME A PATIENT

Whole System Approach

Our health and ability to engage in daily activities depend on an interconnected "root system," much like how a plant's health and growth rely on its roots, stem, and leaves.

Each layer of our body systems builds upon the health and maturity of the preceding layers, though higher layers can also influence the lower ones.

Metabolic health, including the body’s capacity to access and process nutrients, determines whether our cells can foster positive changes or are preoccupied with filtering out toxins.

The vestibular and proprioceptive systems play a critical role in shaping our perception of body position, tissue length and tightness, and areas of stored tension. Similarly, our ability to breathe not only affects but also mirrors our body’s sense of safety, signaling whether we are in a state of freeze, flight, fight, or flow.

This state profoundly impacts how we perceive, filter, and interpret sensory input from our five senses, enabling us to process these signals in the proper sequence without becoming overwhelmed.

The accuracy and function of our sensory systems, in turn, lay the groundwork for our motor systems to coordinate movement, maintain healthy posture, and support overall physical organization.

These foundational layers collectively influence how we interact with the world, enabling us to connect with our environment, learn, build relationships, manage daily challenges, set goals, and ultimately thrive.

Learn About Our Modalities

Pediatric Diagnosis We Can Support:

Emotional Regulation
Oculomotor Dysfunction
Anxiety
Sensory Processing Dysfunction
Fine/Gross Motor Dysfunction
Concussion
Executive Function Disorder
Learning Disability (LD)
Dysgraphia
ADHD
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Cerebral Palsy
Autism

Our Approach Put Into Practice:

Attention Deficits

When a child struggles to focus on instruction or in class, we examine the developmental foundations necessary to sustain attention. Take a look at the picture below: attention sits at the top and is supported by all the levels beneath it. Often, we need to begin by addressing the body’s foundational ability to maintain posture and integrate the systems that process internal sensations. Once the internal body is integrated and can support itself using developmental sensory motor mechanisms, it is then free to focus on processing external information. Now imagine how challenging it would be to pay attention in class if simply holding your body upright in space requires more effort than what is developmentally appropriate..

Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation sits at the highest point of our developmental process, and every layer beneath it influences our ability to regulate emotions effectively. There is a key difference between controlling emotions and regulating them. At Foundations, our aim is not to stop a tantrum or calm a meltdown; instead, we take a broader view, addressing the foundational systems that support emotional regulation as a whole. This begins with influencing how stress hormones are released and processed, which in turn shifts how the body internally functions. As a result, the way we perceive the external world changes, fostering new physical, mental, and emotional connections with our environment.

Oculomotor Dysfunction

Fine motor is supported by gross motor development. Oculomotor (visual tracking, eye teaming, visual motor) function is one of our MOST fine motor coordination mechanisms. The ability of our eyes to coordinate with each other is developmentally connected with tummy time and the baby's movement from head on the floor to looking up into space. As they grow and begin propping up and beginning to crawl the eye-teaming is being developed through those motor patterns and head righting responses. That is a very basic view at how gross motor movement leads to fine motor and oculomotor coordination. When a child comes to us for visual difficulties we do not start with the eyes. We take a look at the systems that come before and integrate and support their function so the foundation can be strong and the child has life lasting neurological changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Do You Assess At Evaluation?

Our evaluation process incorporates standardized testing to establish where your child is currently functioning.

We look at:

Fine Motor: coordination of finger dexterity, visual tracking, pencil grasp, etc.
Visual Motor: Copying shapes, handwriting, etc.
Gross Motor: Coordination of the whole body, jumping, using one side or both sides of their body, etc.
Hand Eye coordination: catching, throwing, etc.
Balance: both feet along a line, 1 foot balance, eyes open vs eyes closed, etc.

Then we look at the integration or maturity of the developmental reflexes which sets up the networks of the brainstem and build the foundational pathways into the limbic system (emotion centers) and higher brain centers.

The objective for our evaluation is to get an idea of how your child's systems are currently functioning as it relates to their ability to interact with their environment and complete developmental skills.

Why Are Developmental Reflexes Important?

We work specifically with the developmental reflexes which are used in utero, during the birthing process to move down the birth canal and are the first mechanisms that help a baby respond to gravity and movement outside of the womb.

They are housed in the brainstem which is the most developed part of the brain at birth. As the baby grows and the brain develops these reflexes become the base of our voluntary movement. They are also the base of how the higher levels of the brain develop such as the emotional and cognitive areas of the brain. When there are functional difficulties including attention deficits, sensory processing issues, developmental delays, etc. it can be due to a reflex not maturing appropriately and therefore developing an inefficient pathway for the higher levels of the brain.

Through our techniques at Foundations we can support these reflexes to mature more appropriately and facilitate the brain to re-wire to more appropriate pathways. Because of this, working with the developmental reflexes can improve attention, emotional regulation, sensory processing, visual motor deficits and developmental delays and many more functional deficits.

How Long Does It Take For Long Lasting Change?

Our approach and techniques are allowing new pathways to be created within the brain and body.It takes time to pave a new pathway for the brain and then allow the time for myelination (how the brain makes a pathway faster) of the new pathway and pruning of the old pathway. It takes at least 8 months to establish the change of pathways in the brain. This does not mean you have to come for therapy for the whole 8 months but to establish the change in the nervous system you will need to complete the home exercises to establish long term the neurological change. Our aim at Foundations is to help you and your child utilize the tools and techniques you will learn so that they have them in their tool kit to support health and wellness for a lifetime.

Do You Give Homework?

We will be giving you techniques and exercises to be completed 5 days a week. It takes time and consistency to clear the debris, smooth the dirt, lay the pavement and paint the lines to create a new pathway. So, it takes time to give the brain enough input to facilitate pathway changes. This is an opportunity to model and teach your child about the skill of establishing a wellness routine. A lot of our parents will add the techniques to their bed time or morning routine. Please think through when you can establish a regular routine and talk with your therapist about ideas in how to incorporate these techniques into your life. These techniques are amazing for every human so do it along with your child and show them that you are taking care of your body just like you want them to take care of theirs.