
| OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY PROGRAMS What is Handwriting Without Tears? The developmentally based, flexible, and engaging Handwriting Without Tears™ program is an easy and effective way for children to develop good handwriting skills. It has been used successfully by more than 10 million children. Combine that with enthusiastic therapists with extensive knowledge in all aspects of handwriting, and you have a winning combination. Handwriting Without Tears™ uses fun, entertaining, and educationally sound instructional methods to teach handwriting to all students. The intuitive workbooks, engaging hands-on materials, and lively music inspire active learning. Handwriting Without Tears™ is a proven success in making legible and fluent handwriting an easy and automatic skill for all students. Therapy Tree is pleased to provide the Handwriting Without Tears™ program in groups or as part of our occupational therapy individual sessions. Groups are run by our occupational therapy staff and typically include 2-5 students. Children are placed in our groups as determined by age and writing level. Groups are available for children with special needs as well as typical children. www.hwtears.com What is Sensory Integration? All day, every day, we receive information from our senses: touch, hearing, sight, taste, smell, body position, movement and balance. Our brains must organize this information so that we can successfully function in all aspects of daily life: at home, at school, at play, at work, and during social interactions. The Senses
Integrating Information from the Senses Considering all of the sensory modalities involved, it is truly amazing that one brain can organize all of the information flooding in simultaneously and respond to the demands of the environment. The complex nature of this interaction is illustrated in the following example: Michael receives the instruction "Please put on your coat." In order to comply, he must
In order to accomplish this seemingly simple task, the nervous system must integrate (focus, screen, sort, and respond to) sensory information from many different sources. Imagine the amount of sensory integration needed to ride a bicycle, participate in a soccer game, or pay attention in an active classroom. Individuals who have difficulties with all or part of this process face significant challenges when engaging in daily functional activities. Therapeutic Listening Therapeutic Listening (TL) is an expansion of Sensory Integration. It is an auditory intervention that uses the organized sound patterns inherent in music to impact all levels of the nervous system. Auditory information from Therapeutic Listening CDs provides direct input to both the vestibular and auditory portions of the vestibulo-proprioceptive, core development, and breath activities so as to sustain grounding and centering of the body and mind in space and time. Providing these postural, movement, and respiratory activities as part of the TL program is critical. Therapeutic Listening utilizes numerous CDs that vary in musical style, types of filtering, and level of complexity. The music on Therapeutic Listening CDs is electronically altered to elicit the orienting response which sets up the body for sustained attention and active listening. www.vitallinks.net www.sensory-processing-disorder.com |




