Our Treatments

Creative Wonders Therapy Center in White Plains, NY brings you more information about our treatments. Read on to learn more.

Early Intervention

Early Intervention (EI) is a NY State funded program providing services to children, birth to age three, who are suspected or have developmental delay and/or disability.

Eligibility of EI services can only be established by state approved agencies with an active contractor with Westchester County Department of Health (WCDOH). If your child is found eligible, appropriate EI services are identified in collaboration with the parent and authorized by WCDOH.

Authorized EI services are arranged by WCDOH and provided by an EI approved provider/agency, such as Creative Wonders Therapy Center, contracted with the WCDOH at no out-of-pocket cost to the parent. WCDOH will access your health insurance for reimbursement; however, this access should not affect your insurance policy.

When EI services are delivered in a child care setting or other community location that requires a fee, the parent is responsible for paying any costs associated with such settings/locations. If you or your physician suspects a delay or disability in your child, please contact the Westchester County Department of Health at (914) 813-5094 to find out if your child is eligible for EI services. 

Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy is a skilled profession with roots in psychology, anatomy, neurology and kinesiology that is aimed at maximizing a child's potential to function independently within his/her environment. The focus of therapy may be rehabilitation after an injury, habilitation when development is behind, fabrication of splints, recommendations for assistive technology or adaptive equipment.

Within pediatric setting a child's occupation may vary. For an infant, that occupation or how he/she occupies their time is play. At this stage of development, play involves negotiating through their environment for effective interacting and exploring. For toddlers, their occupation may be both a player and pre-school student. At this stage, toddlers begin to learn to handle tools such as crayons for writing and scissors for cutting. With school age children, their occupation is again both player and student, but primarily that of a student. More mature skills are expected of them, such as tying their shoe places, feeding themselves, writing, interacting with peers appropriately and attending for extended periods
of time.

The occupational therapist evaluates a child's gross/fine motor skills as well as visual perceptual and sensory integration skills in relation to what is expected of them developmentally. At Creative Wonders Therapy Center, we use state of the art equipment to provide the most current therapy techniques
to children.

We Provide Services to Children with a Wide Range of Diagnoses Including, but not Limited to: 

• Activities of Daily Living- Dressing/Grooming
• Attention Difficulties/Poor Organization of Behavior
• Autism
• Cerebral Palsy
• Coordination Difficulties
• Developmental Delays
• Down's Syndrome
• Fine Motor Concerns
• Gross Motor Concerns
• Handwriting Difficulties
• Sensory Integration Disorders
• Visual Perceptual Skills

Since the occupation of children is primarily play, it is through the use of this media that therapy is often conducted. We work closely with families, teachers, physicians and other professionals to adequately meet the needs of each child.

Physical Therapy

The goal of pediatric physical therapy is to improve performance of gross motor skills. Gross motor skills generally involve larger movements that involve more than one area of the body. Our seasoned physical therapists are skilled and experienced in the following areas:

• Motor Learning/Planning Difficulties
• Executive Functioning
•  NDT and Sensory Integration Treatments
• Balance and Coordination Disorders

In order to improve gross motor skills, as strong physical foundation of coordination, motor planning, balance, posture, strength and endurance must be in place. An accurate assessment of these areas as well as current gross motor function is performed. Based on the results of this assessment as well as the individual needs of each family and child, a treatment plan is devised. Sensory issues as well as cognition and engagement are also evaluated and addressed in physical therapy plan.

Therapy sessions utilize a variety of specialized techniques to address the underlying deficits such as hands-on facilitation, myofascial release and stretching activities, abdominal and core muscle strengthening and balance exercise on a large assortment of the therapeutic equipment. Children with PDD, autism, hypotonia, developmental delays, cerebral palsy, coordination disorders and torticollis are a few of the diagnoses that can be addressed by physical therapy.

Children with delays motor issues often feel left behind when playing with peers and siblings and miss out on valuable cognitive and social learning experiences. Physical therapy can give a child the skills and confidence they need to run, play and explore and most importantly, have fun!  

Speech Therapy

Speech-language pathologists, sometimes called speech therapists, assess, diagnose, treat and
help prevent speech, language, cognitive, communication, voice, swallowing, fluency and other
related disorders.

Speech-language pathologists work with people who cannot make speech sounds or cannot make them clearly; those with speech rhythm and fluency problems, such as stuttering; people with voice quality problems, such as inappropriate pitch or harsh voice; those with problems understanding and producing language; those with cognitive communication impairments, such as attention, memory and auditory processing disorders; and those with hearing loss who use hearing aids or cochlear implants in order to develop auditory skills and improve communication. They also work with people who have oral-motor weakness and feeding or swallowing difficulties.

Speech and language difficulties can result from a variety of causes including developmental delays, cerebral palsy, cleft palate, PDD, mental retardation, hearing impairment or emotional problems. Problems can be congenital, developmental or acquired. Speech-language pathologists use written and oral tests, as well as special instruments, to diagnose the nature and extent of impairment and to record and analyze speech, language and swallowing irregularities. Speech-language pathologists develop an individualized plan of care, tailored to each patient's needs. For individuals with little or no speech capability, speech-language pathologists may select augmentative or alternate communication methods, including automated devices and sign language and teach their use. They teach these individuals how to make sounds, improve their voices or increase their language skills to communicate more effectively. Speech-language pathologists help patients develop or recover reliable communication skills so patients can fulfill their educational, vocational and social roles.

They also work with family members to recognize and change behavior patterns that impede communication and treatment and show them communication-enhancing techniques to use at home.   

Our seasoned speech therapists are skilled and experience in the following areas:

• Oral Motor Difficulties
  
• Articulation and Phonological Disorders
• Apraxia
• Expressive and Receptive Language Difficulties
• Pragmatic Language
• PROMPT training
• Feeding

Therapeutic Listening

When you hear, it is a passive act. Listening, however, is very active. Listening involves the whole body: eye contact, leaning forward toward the sound, focusing attention and concentration, orienting with one ear and discriminating and interpreting sounds with the brain. Listening helps us know about our environment, time and space and helps us to understand and to interact with our world. A major part of the sensory energy received by the brain comes through the ears. They control balance, body movements and coordination; they permit language; they make us speak eloquently and sing in tune; they even control our eyes when we read and our arm, hand and finger movement when we write. They protect us against what we do not want to hear, starting with the sounds of our own body. Interconnected with several different levels of the brain, the ears act as a double antenna receiving messages from both the body and the environment. They are a link between the world with and the world without. Listening is the ability and the desire to use our ears to bring about harmony both within us and in our relationship with others.

When listening does not develop well, the harmony is broken. Problems as diverse as speech and language impairments, hyperactivity, depression, autism, feeling overwhelmed or lacking a direction is life may be some of the results. Reading problems such as dyslexia and other learning disabilities have seldom been looked at and treated as listening problems. Perhaps this is why remedial approaches used to help children with such problems are often so frustratingly ineffective. The Therapeutic Listening Program, as developed by Sheila M. Frick, OTR/L, incorporates sound based methods and techniques into Occupational Therapy treatments. The program uses equipment designed to produce specific effects on listening skills following a prescribed program. Listening difficulties are often part of other perceptual motor, attention and learning difficulties that affect children and adults who have sensory processing problems. This program helps the brain organize and use sensory information more effectively. Our certified occupational therapists create individualized listening programs. These programs have been shown to help improve sleep/wake cycles, attention and focus, balance and midline control, postural and body awareness, coordination and articulation, emotional expression, social skills and more.

Frick, Sheila, Listening with the Whole Body, 2000, p. 1-16
 

Get in Touch 

Contact us for more information on our therapy treatments.