Skill Development
Occupational therapy supports people who find it difficult to learn or develop skills needed for their everyday life or activities they find important.
Your OT will provide individualised and evidence-based strategies that meet your specific needs. Areas of skill development that we are able to support include self-care, motor skills, social interactions, attention and cognitive skills, emotional regulation and sensory processing.
In adults, further skills may include meal preparation, time management, taking public transport, budgeting, money management, employability skills, organisational skills, leisure and recreational activities.
In children, this can be further expanded to look like school participation, toileting, play (sharing, taking turns, making friends, etc), learning development, keeping up with school work, coping with transitions, managing screen time and visual-perceptual skills.
We use approaches such as DIRFloortime, Zones of Regulation, How does your Engine Run? (Alert Program), sensory processing interventions and Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS Program) to support our therapy interventions.
These goals are discussed with you during the initial assessment, so that your OT can come up with a therapy plan together with you.
Assistive Technology
Assistive Technology assists individuals with a disability to increase their independence through devices that make a task safer or easier for them. This can include Assistive Technology such as kitchen and bathroom aids, wheelchairs and walkers, transfer devices and electric beds.
Your OT will assess and discuss with you your needs and goals, select the appropriate device and trial them with you to ensure it is the right fit. They will assist with arranging the purchase of the device and support you with any necessary training to operate it safely and properly.
Home Assessments and Modifications
Home modifications can help you stay safe and be independent in your own home so you can keep doing what you need and love to do.
Minor home modifications include low-cost installations such as grab rails, step ramps, home automation devices, hand-held shower installation, and many more.
Major home modifications means making structural adjustments to a home, for example level access bathrooms, kitchen modifications, changes in internal and external accesses (e.g., stairlifts and large ramps).
Your OT will work with you to determine what is the most suitable option for you, liaise with builders and suppliers to get the job done and ensure everything is working as they should from start to finish.
Please note, major home modifications are currently provided on a case-by-case basis. If you are not sure whether we can assist you, please feel free to contact us to have a chat!
NDIS
Your OT can assist with navigating the NDIS space and offer services such as:
- Individual OT appointments and interventions
- Functional Capacity Assessments to inform Plan Reviews
- Home Assessments for Minor and some Major Home Modifications
- Assessing, trialling and prescribing suitable Assistive Technology (AT)
- Completing AT applications
- Completing Home Modification applications
