Schools

Our speech pathologists and occupational therapists can provide a range of services for students and teaching staff. The overall goals of occupational therapy and speech pathology within the school environment are to identify and examine underlying physical, developmental, sensory, attentional and/or learning challenges that are affecting a student’s ability to learn and engage with the school curriculum, and to support students to overcome these challenges either through strengthening skills or making adjustments and modifications to the learning environment.

Our therapists work in a variety of ways – we may visit a school to work with an individual child (arranged by parents), or work with a school to provide services to large or small groups of children. We can provide:

• Assessments to examine the underlying cause of difficulties at school
• One-on-one therapy at school (or at home) to achieve specific goals
• Group therapy sessions
• Teacher and teacher aide/school officer training and support
• Support with developing programs to be implemented by the school
• Screening and assessment of large numbers of students
• Assessment and reporting for the purpose of Speech Language Impairment (SLI) verification or re-verification
• Support in developing appropriate Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals

We are able to tailor a package of support to your school’s needs. Please contact us to discuss your requirements so that we can provide you with an individualised quote.

Occupational therapy may be helpful for your student if you observe:

• Handwriting difficulties – letter reversals, trouble with pencil grip, fatiguing easily, slow writing speed, trouble with placement of letters and words on lines, issues relating to the spacing and size of a student’s handwriting, difficulty copying from the board.
• Fine and gross motor skills
• Difficulties with organisational skills
• Difficulties with self-care and independence
• Difficulty with attention and concentration
• Sensory processing differences: these can often manifest as attention and concentration difficulties, or an ability to maintain and change arousal/alertness to a particular situation.
• Difficulty with social skills

Speech pathology may be helpful for your student if you observe:

Early Primary Years

• Intelligibility issues
• Speech errors
• Slow progress with literacy
• Language difficulties
• Ordering words in a sentence so that the sentence is logical
• Understanding and following what the teacher says
• Following longer and more complex instructions
• Responding to questions
• Difficulty with story-telling or retelling about an event
• Stuttering
• Social skills difficulties

Upper Primary and Secondary Years

• Any of the above plus:
• Difficulty with solving maths problems – the student may have an underlying language problem making language based maths problems difficult to decipher.
• Poor organisational skills – e.g. assignment planning, management of academic workload