Therapy and Counselling
At Pro Ed our occupational therapy programmes are designed specifically for your child, based on the results and the recommendations of the assessment. They consist of games, worksheets, and exercises, and are presented in an attractive and fun way to keep your child interested and engaged.
Individual therapy sessions usually take place weekly for 30 minutes, at school or at our centre. The therapist will take your child out of the classroom and spend time in a one on one situation completing various tasks that focus on the areas of weakness identified in the assessment. Weekly home programmes will be given to consolidate what has been covered in the therapy session. It is essential to spend between 5 - 20 minutes each day at home to reinforce what has been worked on during that week.
An occupational therapy programme usually takes between 20 – 40 weeks to complete, depending on how many areas need to be focused on, the level your child is at, and how responsive and committed your child is to the therapy. In some situations, this may take longer than 40 weeks.
The focus areas will be re-assessed during the therapy sessions. The results of this re-assessment would be used to adjust the programmes and to recommend whether further sessions are required.
Occupational therapy does not treat specific learning difficulties such as reading, spelling, mathematics, and writing directly but rather addresses the underlying causes. These include visual perception, visual memory, auditory processing, auditory memory, listening skills, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, eye tracking, how legible handwriting is, gross motor co-ordination, processing speed, and concentration. Research and studies show that these core areas are the foundations for learning. By addressing these underlying areas, occupational therapy improves your child’s ability to learn.
These core areas are developmental in nature. Once particular weaknesses are identified they can usually be addressed successfully. Subject to factors beyond the therapist’s control, some children may fail to respond positively to the therapy, although this happens very infrequently.
Depending on the age, the nature, and the extent of their learning delays, children receiving occupational therapy may still require educational intervention such as one-on-one tutoring. This is necessary to translate the underlying skills gained in the therapy sessions into learning experiences and school work. In general, however, improvements in underlying processing and memory will result in an improved ability to learn.
Counselling:Counselling services are available at Pro Ed with our experienced and caring counsellors in the following areas:
- Parenting strategies
- Classroom strategies
- Behavioural challenges with children
- Self-esteem and social skills
- Individual counselling
- Marriage counselling
- Divorce counselling
- Relationship counselling
- Family Issues
- Grief counselling
Pro-Ed will then work with the school…… the impact upon the child’s learning is extremely positive.