Parents, are you searching for a clinic or therapist to provide OT/SI or related treatment?

Therapists and service providers, would you like to let others know about your clinic or therapeutic services?

SOLUTION: The SPD Treatment Directory

Go to www.SPDfoundation.net to learn about The SPD Treatment Directory. This directory is designed to help meet the needs of people who are searching for services for children and adults with Sensory Processing Disorder. The directory includes nationwide listings of a wide variety of service providers who are experienced in working with people with SPD. The categories include:

• Dentist
• Educator
• Eye Care Professional
• Mental Health Professional
• Occupational Therapist
• Physical Therapist
• Physician
• Speech-Language Pathologist
• Community Resource Facility

This SPD Treatment Directory is FREE  for all – for professionals who register, as well as for parents and teachers seeking help.

Before beginning therapy, it is important to become educated about your child's symptoms. Visit message boards on-line and surf the Internet. Contact Developmental Delay Resources, a nonprofit organization, to receive excellent guidance (www.devdelay.org or 800-497-0944).

Read read, read. Sensory Resources (www.SensoryResources.com) and Special Needs Project (www.SpecialNeeds.com) offer extensive lists of books that discuss symptoms and possible remedies. Then, consider the therapies described here, which are just some of the treatments available to benefit your special child.

Occupational Therapy

American Occupational Therapy Association
www.aota.org

Occupational therapy using a sensory integration framework (OT/SI)
www.SPDnetwork.org

Professional:
Occupational Therapist

Occupational therapy is the use of purposeful activity to maximize the independence and maintenance of health of an individual who is limited by a physical injury or illness, cognitive impairment, a psychosocial dysfunction, a mental illness, a developmental or learning disability, or an adverse environmental condition. The practice encompasses evaluation, assessment, treatment, and consultation. For a child, purposeful activities include swinging, climbing, jumping, buttoning, drawing and writing. Such activities are the child's "occupation."

An occupational therapist is a health professional that has received a baccalaureate or M.A. after completing a course of study, plus internship experience, in biological, physical, medical, and behavioral sciences. (After January 1, 2007, all new occupational therapy candidates will require a post-baccalaureate degree.) Coursework includes neurology, anatomy, orthopedics, psychology, and psychiatry.

The occupational therapist may work with your child individually or in a group, at school, in a clinic, hospital, community mental health center, or your home. The ideal occupational therapist is one who specializes in pediatrics and who has received additional, postgraduate training in sensory integration theory and treatment.   The specific goals of occupational therapy using a sensory integration (OT/SI) framework are to improve the person's social participation, self-esteem, self-regulation and sensory-motor abilities.

Under the guidance of a therapist, the child actively takes in movement and touch information in playful, meaningful, and natural ways that help his brain modulate these fundamental neural messages. The child responds favorably to SI treatment, because his nervous system is pliable and changeable. Therapy teaches the child to succeed—and he loves it!

To find an occupational therapist certified to diagnose sensory problems and treat them with OT/SI, search www.SPDnetwork.org (for free), or go to Developmental Delay Resources, www.devdelay.org (for a fee)

Physical Therapy

American Physical Therapy Association
(800) 999-APTA
www.apta.org

Professional:
Physical Therapist

Physical therapy is a health profession devoted to improving an individual's physical abilities. It involves activities that strengthen the child's muscular control and motor coordination, especially of his large muscles. Sometimes using physical agents such as massage, whirlpool baths or ultrasound, physical therapists help the child get his muscles ready for voluntary movement. Some physical therapists receive additional training in sensory integration theory and treatment.

Auditory Therapy,
or Auditory Training

www.tomatis.net
www.VitalLinks.net

Professional:
Audiologist
Speech-and-Language Therapist
Occupational Therapist
or other qualified specialist

A method of sound stimulation designed to improve a person's listening and communicative skills, learning capabilities, motor coordination, body awareness and self-esteem. Various methods employ the use of special headphones. Over several days, the child listens passively to music and voices filtered through the headphones and then participates in active voice work, such as repeating sounds, reading aloud, and conversing. Therapy helps the ear to attend to and discriminate among sounds, the vestibular system to integrate sensory messages of balance and posture, and the person to become more focused, centered, and organized. The Therapeutic Listening Program, designed by Sheila Frick, OTR/L, is an excellent home program that is supervised by a therapist while the child is receiving services.

Brain Gym®

www.braingym.org

Professional:
Licensed Brain Gym® Practitioner

The Brain Gym® system is a set of 26 specific movements developed by Paul Dennison, PhD, based on research in Educational Kinesiology. Educational Kinesiology studies education, child development, and physical movement of the human body as it relates to learning and expression skills. The system readies the body to learn by integrating visual, auditory, and kinesthetic functioning. It stimulates the nervous system equally in all brain parts, minimizes one-sided brain reactions, and strengthens neural pathways between the two hemispheres. The activities effect rapid and often dramatic improvements in concentration, memory, reading, writing, organizing, listening, physical coordination, and more.

Chiropractic

International Chiropractic Pediatric Association
www.icpa4kids.com

ChiroWeb
www.chiroweb.com

Professional: Chiropractor

Chiropractic is the philosophy, art and science of detecting and correcting subluxation in the human body.  Subluxation is a partial dislocation or abnormal movement of a bone in a joint. Chiropractic helps children with SPD by specifically addressing the structure and function of the nerves, muscles and joints controlling posture and movement that influence our ability to interact with our environment.

CranioSacral Therapy (CST)

The Upledger Institute
www.upledger.com
800-233-5880

www.craniosacraltherapy.org

Professional:
Occupational therapist
Physical therapist
Chiropractor
Osteopath
Massage therapist
or other
Registered Craniosacral Practitioner (RCST)

CST is a gentle method of evaluating and enhancing the function of the craniosacral system (the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid that protect the brain and spinal cord). CST involves light-touch manipulation of the bones in the skull, sacrum and coccyx to correct an imbalance that can adversely affect the development of the brain and spinal cord and can result in sensory, motor, and neurological dysfunction. Developed by Dr. John Upledger, CST is used by a variety of healthcare professionals.

Hippotherapy
(therapy with a horse)

North American Riding for the
Handicapped Association
www.narha.org
800-369-RIDE

Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy
www.nceft.com

Professional:
Certified Instructor

Hippotherapy means "treatment with the help of the horse. Occupational, physical and speech therapists use the horse as a modality to improve the posture, movement, neuromotor function and sensory processing of people with disabilities. The movement of the horse, with traditional therapy intervention, influences muscle tone, encourages muscle action, and improves vestibular reactions, sensorimotor integration, and midline postural control.

Nutritional Therapy and
Dietary Intervention

Autism Network for Dietary Intervention
www.AutismNDI.com

Professional: Nutritionist

Good nutrition is essential for development, efficient maintenance and functioning, optimum activity level, and resistance to infection and disease. A nutritionist can help a person with nutritional deficiencies achieve balance in carbohydrates, fats, protein, vitamins, minerals, and water.

Perceptual Motor Therapy

Kids Moving Company
www.kidsmovingco.com
(301) 656-1543

GMS Institute–SI Division
www.gmskids.org
(703) 369-7800

Professional: Perceptual Motor Therapist

Perceptual motor therapy provides integrated movement experiences that remediate gross motor, fine motor, and visual perception problems. Activities, including sensory input techniques, stimulate left- and right-brain communication to help the child interpret incoming information to the nervous system. Goals are to improve visual motor perception, develop more mature patterns of response to specific stimuli, improve motor skills and balance, and stimulate alternate routes to memory and sequencing for those children who do not respond to the methods taught in the conventional classroom.

Psychotherapy

www.floortime.org

Professional:
Psychotherapist
Clinical Psychologist
Licensed Clinical Social worker
Psychiatrist

Psychotherapy is sometimes appropriate, particularly if the child has behavior or self-image problems or is depressed. (Psychotherapy deals with the effects of SI disorder, but not the underlying causes.) sychotherapies include behavioral therapy, to help the child deal with problematical symptoms and behaviors; family therapy, to help the child, parents and siblings become a healthier unit; and play therapy, to promote the child's social-emotional development.

Speech and Language

American Speech-Language-
Hearing Association (ASHA)
www.asha.org
1-800-638-TALK

Professional:
Speech/Language Pathologist (SLP)

Speech-language therapy includes activities designed to meet specific goals for the child. The child may need help with speech skills, such as pronouncing "L," "K," or "Sh" sounds; monitoring the pitch of his voice; and strengthening oral-motor control in the muscles of his mouth. He may also benefit from activities designed to expand his language skills, such as retelling stories, conversing, and playing games to develop memory and vocabulary. As many children with SPD are picky eaters, therapy with a speech pathologist trained in oral-motor and feeding issues may be very helpful. Indeed, when the child receives co-treatment simultaneously from an occupational therapist trained in this area, optimal benefits of getting in the mouth occur.

Vision Therapy,
or Vision Training (VT)

Optometrists Network
www.optometrists.org

Optometric Extension Program Foundation
www.oep.org
(949) 250-8070

Parents Active for Vision Education
www.pavevision.org
800-PAVE-988

Professional:
Developmental (or Behavioral) Optometrist

Vision therapy, or optometric visual training, helps the person improve visual skills and can also prevent learning-related visual problems. Along with lenses or prisms, VT helps the child integrate visual information with input from other senses, such as hearing, touching, and moving. A developmental optometrist provides sensory-motor and educational activities that strengthen eye-motor control, eye-hand coordination and depth perception, and help develop visual perception.