At Helping Hands OT, our mission is to help your child develop the necessary foundational skills to thrive at school and in life.  In Occupational Therapy, your child will obtain the basic building blocks of sensory & motor skills that lead to a joyful and confident life.

Helping Hands OT Helps Children With These Difficulties

As a parent, ask yourself if your child has difficulties with these basic life functions.

Bilateral Hand Use
Cursive Handwriting
Dexterity Skills
Executive Functioning
Fine Motor Skills
Growth Mindset
Handwriting Legibility
Handwriting Automaticity
Keyboarding
Pencil Grasp
Printing Skills

Representational Drawing     
Strength and Endurance
Self Help Skills
Sensory Skills
Sensory Tolerance
Visual Memory
Visual Skills [Eye use coordination]
Visual Perceptual Skills
Writing Readiness

Helping Hands OT Can Help Children With These Diagnoses:

ADHD
Anxiety & Other Mental Health Concerns
Autism Spectrum
Cognitive Delay
Coordination Disorder
Developmental Delay
Down Syndrome
Dyslexia
Dyspraxia (Handwriting Difficulties)
Feeding and Oral Difficulties
Fine Motor Difficulties
Genetic Disorders
Learning Disabilities
Pervasive Developmental Disorder
Self Regulation / Behavior Concerns
Sensory Processing Disorder

But really, what do OTs do?

What might OT be able to do for my child?

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Here at Helping Hands OT, Pediatric Occupational Therapy services are provided in the areas of Fine Motor, Handwriting, Self-Help, Visual, Sensory, & Self-Regulation skills.

Some pediatric occupational therapy service definitions:

• • Core Strength: Posture and hand use depend on the strength and stability of the core/trunk of the body.

 

• Hand Dominance: Using one hand as a skilled hand and the other as a support.

• Hand Use: Reaching, picking up, placing, using objects and toys. Using a variety of grasping patterns.
  
  

 

• Hand Strength: Gripping and holding to accomplish all hand-related tasks.

 

• Bilateral Hand Skills: Using two hands together. Hands often do different jobs and both need to be coordinated together, e.g., stringing beads, cutting with a scissors, folding a paper, or tying shoes.

• Dexterity Skills: Using fingertips with precision, picking up, holding, shifting, turning and placing small objects, buttoning, & tying shoes.

 

• Tool Use: Using the many tools of childhood including: crayon, pencil, paint brush, scissors, tape, ruler, and paper clips.

Helping Hands can assist your child in these ways:

 

⦿ Holding and Using crayons/markers/pencils: Fixing awkward or ineffective use of writing utensils.

⦿ Pencil Grasp: Holding writing utensils with an efficient and
mature pencil grasp.

 

⦿ Imitating / Tracing / Copying: Imitating movements, following simple directions, forming lines, and making shapes.

⦿ Representational Drawing: Drawing simple objects and ideas.

⦿ Printing:  Using conventional letter and number formations, writing without needing to trace or copy, writing with an appropriate size, placing letters and spaces correctly, writing legibly and quickly, hand strength and endurance to write for increasing lengths of time, and writing with ease and pleasure.

 

⦿ Cursive: Learning fast, automatic, and legible handwriting through the use of cursive writing.

⦿ Keyboarding: Using individual fingers and automatic understanding of key placement to build fast and efficient typing skills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helping Hands can assist your child in these ways:

 

 

➜ Dressing Skills: Putting on and taking off clothes, shoes, and coats.

 

➜ Sequencing: Recalling the steps needed to do a self-help task, and then doing them in the correct order.

 

➜ Closures: Buttoning, zipping, tying shoes, opening and closing containers.

 

➜ Eating: Tasting a variety of foods, textures and temperatures.  Eating a variety of foods, biting, and chewing.

 

 

➜ Drinking: Independently drinking from cups and straws.

 

➜ Using Utensils: Using spoon & fork, cutting and spreading with knives.

➜ Oral hygiene: Brushing teeth or allowing others to brush teeth.

 

➜ Blowing Nose: Tolerating Kleenex & nose wipes, blowing into Kleenex, holding and blowing into Kleenex.

 

➜ Using Bathrooms:  Expanding on initial toilet training to use a variety of restrooms in school or the community.

Some definitions:

 

 

• Understanding Lines & Curves, Shapes, and Directions: Needed for reading, writing, constructing puzzles, and drawing.

 

 

 

• Using eye musculature to make vision more efficient and useful: Needed, for example, for catching a ball, copying patterns, reading from left to right, and keeping one’s place while reading.

 

• Recalling how symbols are formed without needing to see them: Needed for reading, writing, and drawing.

 

 

 

 

• Correctly orienting letters and numbers without reversals: Needed for fast and efficient writing and reading.

 

 

Helping Hands can assist your child in these ways:

 

 

★ Tactile / Touch: Letting someone help through touching, hugging, or holding hands.  Painting, gluing, getting messy, touching food, and washing face.

 

 

 

 

★ Oral: Tolerating tooth brushing, eating a variety of foods, chewing, biting, drinking from cups.

 

 

 

★ Proprioception: Understanding where one’s body is in space and how and where one is moving, avoiding obstacles when moving.

 

 

 

★ Auditory: Improving sound tolerance and learning to use accommodations.

 

Helping Hands can assist your child in these ways:

 

☑︎ Attention and Accommodations for a Need to Move:  Developing strategies to help children improve their focus, e.g.,  standing to work or movement breaks.

 

☑︎ Self Awareness of Emotions and Actions: Identifying basic feelings of self and others as well as the impact of one’s actions on others.

 

☑︎ Self-Regulation, Strategies and Accommodations: Learning e.g.,  Zones of Regulation, Yoga, and Mindfulness. Developing a menu of helpful strategies.

 

☑︎ Planning & Organizing: Developing systems of organization, using materials, and sequencing actions.

 

☑︎ Tolerating Frustration and Developing Perseverance: Building on success.

 

☑︎ Picture Communication: Using picture schedules and systems to aid in the child’s understanding, compliance, and independence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

☑︎ Growth Mindset: Identifying “set mindset” versus “growth mindset” and learning to believe in self growth.

 

Pediatric Occupational Therapy Services: video

 

What to expect from a Parent Consultation:

Before our consultation, I will give you a form to fill out that will help you pinpoint your concerns.  During our consultation, we will have a conversation about your child, and I will ask about your child’s strengths and difficulties.  After the consultation, I expect that you will come away with a few ideas to try at home.  If I believe your child is a candidate for an occupational therapy evaluation, I will let you know, but I will not pressure you to pursue services with me or with any other provider.  If I know of a provider who would be better suited to your child’s needs than I am, I will pass that information on to you.

To request an Initial Consultation Form, to make an appointment,  or for any question.

Print Path is a fully accredited Occupational Therapy private practice with reasonable rates. We do not accept insurance at this time.

Free Initial Consultation:
Initial consultations usually last 15-20 minutes. This free consultation will help us determine if an occupational therapy evaluation is appropriate and if Thia is a good fit for your child and family. Initial consultations consist of two parts:
1) a confidential questionnaire, Initial Consultation Form, to be filled out and submitted to Thia, followed by
2) a phone or in-person meeting.  During the initial consultation we will discuss your child’s development and your family’s concerns for your child. You can contact Thia to schedule an initial consultation by calling: (503) 345-7586 or emailing:  Thia@HelpingHandsOT.org

Evaluation:
Thia will need to complete an initial evaluation before your child begins therapy. Most evaluations take less than one hour. The price for a 30-60 minute evaluation along with a second 15-25 minute meeting to discuss the results, suggested adaptations, accommodations, and therapy recommendations is $145. You can contact Thia about scheduling an initial consultation by calling: (503) 345-7586 or emailing: Thia@HelpingHandsOT.org

Treatment:
If recommended, 50-minute weekly treatment sessions are $92- $115 and include 5 minutes of parent/therapist collaboration.  Typically, Thia will recommend activities for you and your child to do at home between sessions.  Home programming is a part of therapy services and is needed to ensure adequate progress and integration of new skills into your child’s daily activities. Thia has a lending library of therapeutic materials that you can use for fun activities at home.

Discounts:
You can receive a significant discount by paying for services in advance. The standard fee is $115 per session. You can save either 10% or 20% by paying in advance for either a 5- or 10-week treatment package. You can contact Thia about available time slots by calling: (503) 345-7586 or emailing: Thia@HelpingHandsOT.org   

Scholarships:
You are welcome to add your name to a waiting list for 25% scholarships for low-middle income and 50% scholarships for low-income families. To apply for a scholarship, you can fill out and return the Initial Consultation Form.

With over 25 years experience working as a fully accredited pediatric occupational therapist, Thia brings to her work an intense love of children and a strong belief that every child can thrive.  She is adept at developing innovative and practical solutions for children and families. Thia’s specialties include handwriting, fine-motor skills, self-regulation, and functional skills for the classroom and life!

Thia is a leader in her field and has developed successful therapeutic materials and curricula used by Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, and Speech and Language Clinicians. These highly acclaimed resources are sold through her Print Path store in the United States and in over 20 countries worldwide.  She has presented at professional conferences as well as to occupational therapy graduate students at the collegiate level.

She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a BS in Occupational Therapy with a second major in Social Work. She received her Masters in Education -Professional Development, researching handwriting, at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Plus, Thia has a blog!  Thia shares her insights into the world of child development and her passion for helping children who suffer from difficulties with handwriting through her blog  PrintPath.org.