Pediatric Therapy Specialists

Children’s Mental Health Awareness

Today we recognize Children’s Mental Health Awareness. The importance of this issue does not depend on whether you are personally affected. The truth is we all know someone suffering from mental health.

Do you understand the significance of early detection and notice the problematic signs? Do you realize the role therapy plays in addressing mental health in children?

Early Detection

In the United States 1 in 6 children between the ages of 2 – 8 has a mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder. 5 kids in a class of 30! More than half of them that have a developmental delay are not discovered before the age of 3.

Most parents think their child is merely going through a “phase” and will grow out of concerning issues. It is easy to think this way especially if they are your first child and you have not yet seen typical behaviors and development from older siblings. Each child is different, but if you are seeing abnormal behavior then extra attention is needed. It can be heartbreaking watching a child struggle.

Warning Signs

If you are concerned your child shows signs of a mental illness consult their doctor. Tell them about behaviors that are worrying you.

These signs can be any of the following:

  • Withdrawing from social interactions
  • Outbursts or extreme irritability
  • Self-harm or aggressive behavior
  • Changes in mood and personality
  • Weight loss or gain
  • Problems sleeping
  • Inability to focus
  • Extended periods of sadness
  • Changes in eating habits
  • Frequent levels of anxiety

Screening for mental health during the early years will help with intervention and is required for receiving needed services. Seek the support your child needs.

The Role of Occupational and Speech Therapy

When it comes to mental illness, occupational and speech therapists at FUNctionabilities provide therapy services for children and youth by focusing on function and independence. This includes creating goals and an individualized plan after specific testing to understand the causes of the symptoms. This helps children learn to expand their abilities and perform tasks their peers effortlessly do. They learn to express their feelings and better communicate while improving their social skills and confidence.

Strive to be the hero your child needs. Do what it takes to help them. If you have concerns, then begin treatment at an early age. Don’t delay! Without treatment, disorders will continue into adulthood causing emotional, mental, and physical issues on a larger scale. Our therapists promote mental health daily as they work with children. These children receive our life-changing therapy that enables them to DREAM, FIGHT, and BECOME all you hoped for. 

Ready for another tool in your parenting toolkit? You’re not alone. See what to do after receiving a diagnosis for mental illness.

https://www.parenttoolkit.com/health-and-wellness/advice/mental-health/how-you-can-help-your-child-after-they-ve-been-diagnosed-with-mental-illness

References:

https://www.samhsa.gov/childrens-awareness-day

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/childrens-health/in-depth/mental-illness-in-children/art-20046577

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Our Response to COVID-19

The top concern at FUNctionabilities is the health and safety of our beloved kids and their families. Just like you, we are taking the current situation regarding COVID-19 very seriously and monitoring it closely. 

It’s tough being home all day with your kids and you’ve again been able to see how important therapy is. Providing transformational therapy is important, to us and we plan to remain open for these essential treatment sessions. We will continue care and be supportive to all parents while following the guidance given by local and federal health officials.  

We wanted to share our new preventative measures and adjustments: 

  • Everyone entering our building will be washing their hands. Children will wash their hands before and after therapy. 
  • Our receptionist will check you in since we have discontinued the self-check-in process for now. We’ll also make things easier for you by charging the credit card we already have on file for your portion responsibility of treatment. 
  • We are asking parents and family members to wait in their car during treatment. 
  • Each therapist will accompany the child outside to their parents in the car to discuss how therapy is progressing. 
  • Because the health of everyone here is so important we’ve installed a  REME HALO® UV air purification system. It effectively kills up to 99% of most germs, bacteria, and viruses on surfaces and in the air. Watch the process of its installation and why we knew it is so important!  
  • We are taking the temperature of all children and staff each day and will ask anyone running a fever or showing other symptoms to return home. We understand how important it is to keep everyone healthy.
  • We are sanitizing all door handles, counters, and bathrooms during each transition (when a therapist finishes with one child and begins with another.)
  • Our awesome gym already provides plenty of space, but for now we’ll only have up to 10 people (5 children and 5 therapists) at a time. Additionally, there will be at least 6 ft. between individuals and their activities. Don’t worry!  
  • Every evening we are spraying multi-surface disinfectant and wiping down all surfaces, along with our regular cleaning. 

We work hard to keep our entire building clean and organized so kids can enjoy life-changing therapy. This whole situation is new for all of us and we’re doing our best to adjust as needed and will update you on our policies. 

Please take the following precautions in your home as well: 

✔️ Wash your hands often. Count to 20 or sing the ABC’s with your child to make sure they’re clean!  

✔️ Cover your mouth with your elbow or a tissue if you cough or sneeze.  

✔️ Practice social distancing by keeping at least 6 ft. from others. 

✔️ Stay home if you or a family member is feeling sick. 

✔️ Disinfect commonly used areas. Things like door handles, counters and tables, and electronic devices get touched a lot!  

As always, please help us by calling at least 48 hours in advance if you need to reschedule your child’s appointment. Let our therapists know what they can do to further help you at home. We appreciate you helping us keep our community healthy in a difficult time.  

If you have any concerns, please contact us at (801) 443-7775.  

We’re here for you and your child! Let’s all stay healthy so we get through this together.  

-The FUN Team  

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Vote for Us so We Can Reach More Kiddos

We are passionate about providing revolutionary pediatric therapy to help children reach their highest potential giving families more peace.

Tell us about your business. What inspired you to get into it, what you sell/service you offer, what makes your business stand out and how it impacts you, your community or the environment.

We learned of parents in our community struggling to get therapy for their children. As professionals we hated to hear of long wait lists, short treatment plans, and no child-centered models. For 18 months we traveled the country to get advanced knowledge and skills and met with other clinic owners. We poured everything we had in to what we knew the children in our community deserved. Now consistent, life-changing therapy is available to these kids, and they love it! But our journey is not over.

How would you use the FedEx Small Business Grant money to make a significant impact on your business?

Many parents are limited in their ability to provide for their kids because of insurance and finances. To help these families we offer discounts and are creating therapy groups. However, as the sole financers of a young company, we need help. The FedEx grant money would allow us to expand our space for groups and offer financial assistance programs, so children are no longer victims of their circumstances and can receive FUN, effective therapy. Please help us reach more kids!

Learn about our journey so far . . .

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What to Expect During a Speech Therapy Evaluation

The word ‘evaluation’ can sound intimidating, especially for parents and children who have never before experienced a pediatric speech therapy evaluation. There can be apprehension in not knowing what to expect when something is new. In reality, an evaluation for therapy is not intimidating or scary. This article aims to explain what a typical speech therapy evaluation will look like to ease any potential anxiety.

Before the speech therapy evaluation, you will likely receive paperwork to fill out about your child’s history, your concerns, and insurance information. This is frequently sent to you ahead of time so that you can fill it out at your leisure and bring it completed to the evaluation so you have less to worry about on the evaluation day. This information seeks to help you to better understand your insurance benefits in regards to therapy, to allow you to express the concerns that you have for your child, and gives the therapist valuable information to guide their evaluation.

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At the Clinic

When you arrive at the clinic, the speech therapist will greet you and your child. Sometimes it takes a few minutes (and maybe a toy or two!) for your child to warm up to the therapist. Most of the time, the kids are excited to play with new toys and have no problems separating from their parents. It is important for the therapist to have time alone with your child to begin to create the vital therapeutic alliance that will help them improve quicker. This time alone also allows the therapist to see what the child can do without the child wanting to rely on their parent.

Once the therapist takes your child to the therapy room, the formal speech therapy evaluation begins. The speech therapist will have chosen a formal standardized assessment tool ahead of time based on the presenting diagnosis and concerns. If your child has speech sound concerns, the therapist will frequently begin the evaluation with an oral-mechanism exam. This means they will examine the structures involved in speech sound production (lips, teeth, tongue, palate, etc.) and make note of any difficulties and/or abnormalities. This is a quick and non-invasive external examination. Sometimes children have low tone or increased tone, a short lingual frenulum (the ‘tie’ holding the tongue to the bottom of the mouth), or other physical factors that may contribute to or be responsible for speech deficits.

After the oral-mechanism examination, a formal assessment is typically administered. For speech sound errors, the test consists of having your child name pictures while the therapist transcribes the child’s speech sounds using phonetics. For receptive and expressive language concerns, the test consists of structured situations with specific questions targeting language skills using toys and materials to keep your child engaged. Fluency and pragmatic language can also be assessed through standardized tests. No matter the skill, the test will be chosen based on your child’s age, presenting concerns, and skill level.

Throughout the evaluation, the speech and language therapist also informally evaluates your child using observation and play. Many speech and language skills can be observed through a simple activity such as rolling a ball back and forth or playing with pretend food. If needed, the therapist also uses parent interview to obtain further information about the child’s skills.

After the Evaluation

Once the formal evaluation is finished, the therapist will bring your child back to you. The next 10-15 minutes are spent discussing the preliminary results of the evaluation. At this point therapist will be able to tell you if there are delays with your child’s speech and/or language, and what the next step should be. Sometimes the next step is further testing, while other times it is appropriate to begin skilled therapy sessions. Every child is different, so evaluation and therapy plans are based on each individual child’s skills, needs, and the parent’s desires.

Be cautious of a therapist who does not discuss the results of the evaluation with you or include you in deciding on priorities. The family is a large part of a successful therapy program and you are crucial to your child’s success in therapy. If you feel that the results of the evaluation do not match the skills and needs of your child, consult another therapist to obtain a second opinion.

If you have any concerns about the evaluation, before, during, or after the appointment, always feel free to contact your therapist or therapy clinic with questions!

Contributed By: Rachel Jacob, CCC-SLP

Reference: ASHA.org

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Children with Autism Should Not Have to Wait

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Why Are Children with Autism Having to Wait?

In Utah, 1 in 54 children are diagnosed with autism that is approximately 5,700 children under the age of 18 in Salt Lake County alone. Experts recommend that children with autism receive up to 25 hours of structured intervention a week. The Daily Harold recently reported “There’s also a deficit of people in Utah County who can help people with autism, whether it’s through diagnosis or treatment.” They went on to quote Teresa Cardon, director of the Melisa Nellesen Autism Center at Utah Valley University saying “We cannot service all the children in our state right now.” It is for this reason that Kaylyn and I created FUNctionabilities, while we do treat children with autism we also see children with a variety of difficulties.

We were tired of waiting for children to be seen for therapy!   We did not feel that is was acceptable to make our children wait up to 5 months to be seen! We were frustrated with not being able to refer our patients to skilled outpatient therapy where they can be seen quickly and efficiently to enhance what we were doing with them in the schools. Within our community there are very few options for pediatric outpatient therapy and even fewer that have extensive training and the equipment to treat the difficulties many of our children face today. We spent a year and a half traveling the country meeting with other private practice owners and getting additional training to further boost our skills and ensure that the treatment we provide is cutting-edge.

We created FUNctionabilities so that we can help children get in to therapy quicker and promise to have an appointment available for an evaluation within two weeks of your call. We are also prepared to offer both weekly treatments and intensive treatments (2 or more times per week). [Stay tuned for the next blog in this series that further explains why we built our treatment model on frequent therapy visits.]

Eric Peacock from My Autism Team polled 8,000 parents of children with autism and found “The therapies parents reported as working best for their children, rank-ordered by percent of mentions: 1. Occupational Therapy and 2. Speech Therapy.” We built our treatment model on the foundation of the effectiveness of these types of therapy but look forward to adding other disciplines to our clinic as we try to meet the different needs of our community. Currently we offer occupational therapy, sensory integration therapy, feeding therapy, and speech therapy.

Even though occupational therapy is listed as one of the most effective treatments for autism, Karen Hyche reported that “Physicians refer least often for children exposed to drugs in utero and for concerns of autism spectrum disorder. This is of great concern. Autism is one of the most costly disorders. . . . These lifetime costs could likely be reduced simply by referring a child.” What we are finding is that physicians do not know what occupational therapists can do.

To reiterate, people in general simply do not know what occupational therapists can do. For example, parents often think their child is receiving occupational therapy and/or speech therapy in the school so he or she does not need anything else. However, Daily Harold reported “Public schools do what they can, but have to work with limited capacity, funding and training.” The following chart should help summarize the similarities and the differences:

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While this chart lists off several differences, this is not to minimize what therapist do in the school setting but to show how both are often needed to provide children with the best care and effect the most change in their lives.

Be wary of . . .

any place that claims they have all the answers and offers a quick fix. What works best for one child may not work at all for another child or may need to be significantly personalized to meet the needs of each child.

Tips

Look for a pediatric clinic that specializes in your child’s areas of concern. Be sure that those delivering treatment are appropriately trained to do so, not only by having advanced degrees but also have pursued extra training.

Contributed By: August Quaife, MOTR/L

References

http://www.heraldextra.com/special-section/autism/autism-in-utah-wide-spectrum-long-waitlists/article_90071e9e-236b-5204-a959-84c6afc1585e.html

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/states/comm_report_autism_2014.pdf

https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2012/09/25/top-8-autism-therapies-%E2%80%93-reported-parents

http://occupational-therapy.advanceweb.com/Archives/Article-Archives/Are-Pediatricians-Appropriately-Referring-Children-to-OT.aspx

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Does My Child Need Speech Therapy?

fonoG copySpeech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are specialists trained in the many areas of communication. It may surprise most people how broad the field is and the many benefits of speech therapy for children. SLPs provide specialized therapy for speech articulation, language, voice, fluency, feeding, and social/pragmatic skills. What do each of these mean exactly?

Articulation and Phonology

Articulation and phonology refer to the production of specific speech sounds or classes of sounds. For example, many children produce /w/ rather than /r/, or move their tongue past their teeth producing /th/ rather than /s/. This falls under the category of “Articulation”. Some children may have difficulty with entire classes of sounds, producing all sounds in the front of the mouth (so /t/ becomes /k/), or leaving one sound off of a cluster of sounds (/poon/ instead of /spoon/). These are phonological errors. An SLP can increase your child’s intelligibility; how much of their speech is understood by others.

Language

Language is divided into receptive, or what a child understands, and expressive, or what a child is able to say. An expressive delay occurs when a child isn’t talking as much as they should be at a certain age. A two-year-old who only speaks 10-20 words would benefit from speech therapy. If you feel your child doesn’t seem to understand what they hear or you find you have to rephrase things for them to understand, your child may have a receptive language delay. For example, if you say “Give me the red crayon” and they hand you the blue crayon. Some children have both expressive and receptive language delays at the same time. An SLP can help your child develop the language skills needed to answer questions, follow directions, and participate in conversations.

Fluency/Stuttering

Stuttering or dysfluency occurs when there are breaks in the flow of speech. So a child may pause, repeat sounds, etc. Some children have other behaviors associated with dysfluent moments including: tics, facial grimaces, and tension. An SLP will help a child manage these dysfluent moments in order to increase fluent speech.

Voice

Voice disorders occur when there is a problem with the vocal folds which produce sound. This could mean a nodule on the vocal fold itself or paralysis of the vocal folds. Symptoms typically include hoarse voice or loss of voice. An SLP may make recommendations such as: not yelling or talking too much. If there is a structural cause for voice problems, surgery may be required. An SLP can provide therapy following surgery to assist in regaining a normal speaking voice.

Social/Pragmatic Language

Some kids need help with social and pragmatic skills such as having a conversation, understanding emotions and feelings, and nonverbal communication. SLPs can provide instruction to improve these skills so that the child can participate in successful conversations with others.

Swallowing/Feeding

SLPs also provide therapy for feeding and swallowing issues. Children as young as newborns may be seen by an SLP for assistance with latching on or suckling. Older children may need to increase the number and types of food they will eat. Some children have structural problems such as a cleft palate and need speech therapy to assist with feeding skills following surgery.

Why does my child need to see a speech-language pathologist?

Your child could receive speech therapy services for any of the areas defined above. An SLP is specially trained in all of these areas of communication and can help your child improve these skills so that they are better able to communicate with others and function effectively in all environments. Be wary of therapists who are not seeing your children frequently enough to help them make quick and lasting changes.

For more information on any of the disorders related to speech and language, visit www.asha.org.

Contributed By: Rachel Jacob, CCC-SLP

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