Articles by: focustherapy
Speech Pathologists Advise: Ditch The Sippy Cup
Sippy cups are small, portable and help keep messes to a minimum – BUT, there’s a catch. They can wreak havoc on your child’s teeth and lead to oral motor delays that can snowball into speech and language impairments. As…
Behavior Therapists: Help Your Child With Autism Keep Their Cool Despite Summer Routine Disruptions
Most families of school-age children are familiar with the “summer slide,” that break in routine that slows the momentum of progress in the long, lazy days of summer. Fort Myers behavior therapists at FOCUS know “the slide” can be especially…
Smartphones & Speech Therapy: A GR8! Combo
Smartphones in the hands of little ones is generally frowned upon, and usually for good reason. Researchers have linked excess screen time to speech delays, stunted socialization and repetitive motion “tech ache.” BUT – it’s not all bad. In speech…
OT Helps Children Successfully Cope With Sensory Processing Disorder
Sensory processing disorder is when the brain has difficulty receiving and responding to information obtained via the senses. Although it’s not formally recognized as a distinct medical diagnosis, our occupational therapists in Fort Myers know it’s very real and something…
Speech Development Milestones for Kindergarten Readiness
Parents of 5-to-6-year-olds in Southwest Florida are gearing up to get their children ready for a big next step: Kindergarten. While this is an undoubtedly exciting time for everyone, when you have concerns about a child’s speech delay or lagging…
Fort Myers ABA Therapy Helps Target Toilet Training
Learning how to use the toilet is a pivotal skill for every child, and one’s “readiness” can widely vary. ABA therapy can help children with autism and other delays master the potty with positive reinforcement. Toilet training is all too…
Researchers: Speech Disorders Examined Through Songbirds
A new study on the way songbirds learn to sing has piqued researchers’ interest for what it might teach us about how humans learn to talk – and more specifically, about how to tackle certain speech disorders. Children who struggle…
Physical Therapy Targets Gross Motor Delays That Spur Other Problems
A child who struggles to explore their environment on the same level of their peers due to a gross motor delay may struggle on other fronts too, including cognitive development and behavioral challenges. Recently, the journal Physical Therapy published a study…
Why Our FOCUS Speech and Occupational Therapists LOVE Puppets
Power to the puppets! For children with a range of difficulties and disabilities, our speech and occupational therapists in Fort Myers have seen striking benefits in working with puppets during our sessions with kids. Puppets, first and foremost, are fun…
Feeding Your Child’s “Sensory Diet” at the Beach
You may have heard your occupational therapist use the term “sensory diet.” It’s how we describe those activities employed to help assist children with sensory processing disorder. The technical term for these activities is “sensory integration intervention.” Many children with…