Learn MORE About ot and ABA

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Occupational Therapy 

Occupational therapy helps people become more independent in performing occupations. Occupational therapists do not think of an occupation as a job, but instead things that occupy your time, which are all the activities of life that we want and/or need to do to be successful in our roles and settings. 

Typical childhood occupations involve playing with others, learning at school, and selfcare activities like brushing your teeth and getting dressed. Typical childhood roles involve being a child, and student. Typical childhood settings involve home and school. 

Some typical deficits that children have which impact their ability to perform their occupations are: 

• Difficulty with fine motor skills like buttoning buttons and writing. 

• Difficulty with gross motor skills like throwing, catching, climbing, running, jumping and balancing. 

• Issues with sensory processing, which means they may overreact or underreact to sensations like touch, movement, or pressure. Kids with sensory processing issues may be picky eaters, not like certain clothing textures, not like having their teeth brushed, hair combed or washed. They may be very energetic or have very low energy. 

• Issues with emotional regulation involve having very big emotions over small things, or little reactions to very big things. Children who have issues regulating their emotions may have frequent “meltdowns,” or tantrums, trouble transitioning, or other problematic behaviors. 

Occupational therapy can help children with autism, developmental disabilities, coordination disorders, and motor skill delays among others. 

OT  can help kids learn  to become more independent in their play, and social participation. Improve their motor skills, regulate their emotions and sensations better, as well as be more independent with activities of daily living like eating, dressing, grooming, etc. 

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  Applied Behavior Analysis

ABA stands for applied behavior analysis. Behavior analysis is the scientific study of behavior and its causes. Applied behavior analysis is the application of the findings of behavior analysis with humans in socially significant ways.

What does that mean? A technical definition says we manipulate the environment to change behavior. That is true, but meaningless to many nonprofessionals. In reality, we identify what behaviors are occurring and why. Then we teach you what to do so that those behaviors will change, which means saying and doing things differently before and after it occurs. Over time, doing these things can increase skills and decrease problematic behaviors. 

ABA is a scientific based therapy that teaches:

• Functional communication training (e.g., teach them to ask for things, label items, identify things they're asked about, etc.)
• Basic learning skills (e.g. , visual perceptual skills, matching, motor and vocal imitating, etc.), 
• Behavioral reduction (e.g., aggression, SIB, property destruction, and severe tantrums)
• Independence (e.g., play skills, toilet training, multistep activities, waiting, accepting "no", etc.)
• Social skills (e.g., eye contact, social play skills, turn taking, shared activities)

Behavior analysis has been called the “gold standard” for autism treatment and began its applied work by asking to work with the cases other professionals couldn’t seem to help. This is why we recommend ABA for children and adults with autism and particularly those with more significant delays.