Our Services

We offer services that are considered best practice interventions

CO-OP Therapy

Cognitive Orientation to Occupational Performance

  • Research is demonstrating that CO-OP therapy is an effective task-oriented intervention. It is considered a ‘best practice’ intervention for individuals with motor coordination problems to address activity and participation goals.
  • CO-OP was created for children with developmental coordination disorder, but is also an effective intervention for children and adults with other conditions such as mild intellectual disability, high functioning autism and cerebral palsy.
  • The objective of CO-OP therapy is to enable the development of specific skills to promote successful participation in the typical activities of childhood.
  • During the therapy process, the child chooses three activities or tasks that are very important to the child, but they find difficult or are unable to do. The child then works alongside the the therapist to establish strategies to enable skill acquisition of these important activities. The three ‘goals’ selected by the child can be anything the child wants to, needs to or is expected to do in everyday life.
  • Some examples of goals are: to ride a bike without training wheels, to be able to skip with a skipping rope, to improve handwriting quality, to tie shoelaces etc. For young adults, goals may include using public transport independently, and preparing/ cooking a meal.
  • CO-OP therapy is offered in blocks of 10 sessions.
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Cerebral Palsy

  • Services for children with cerebral palsy include:

    • Bimanual training
    • Goal directed training
    • CO-OP therapy
    • Bike skills training
    • Strength and fitness training
    • Post-Botox therapy
    • Developmental intervention for infants
  • During the initial assessment, goals are established with the child and family reflecting what is most important. Based on this information a therapy plan is established.
  • Therapy is offered in intensive 8 weeks blocks or on a regular ongoing basis.
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Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)

  • DCD affects 5-6% of school aged children. Although the prevalence is very high, DCD is largely under recognised, under diagnosed and not well understood. An individual with DCD might be described as clumsy, and having difficulty with typical everyday activities. Its common that there was a delay in achieving early developmental milestones such as crawling and walking.
  • In order to be diagnosed with DCD an individual must present with the following:

    • Motor coordination below expectations for the child’s age
    • Difficulties with coordination impact on activities of daily living such as school
      performance and leisure

      • and there is no alternative explanation for the difficulties (such as an
        intellectual disability or neurological condition).

    Children with DCD can have co-occurring conditions such as ADHD, ASD or a learning difficulty.

  • DCD is often called ‘dyspraxia’ or sometimes ‘sensory processing disorder’
  • DCD is usually diagnosed by a ‘team’ consisting of a paediatrician and an occupational therapist. The occupational therapist can provide a standardised measure of the child’s motor skills and an understanding of the difficulties the child has in day to day functioning.
  • Overwhelmingly in the research task-oriented approaches, rather than sensory based interventions, demonstrate best effectiveness to improve task performance. CO-OP therapy is considered the best practice intervention for children with DCD.
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