A child’s work is play. Play is critical to all aspects of a child's development. This program helps children discover fun ways to explore their environment and at the same time help the various systems within their nervous system to mature. This program is appropriate for children who are nervous about exploring or are challenged physically in exploring their environment.

This program increases learning readiness within the school environment for academic and sporting events. Motor Learning, Brain Gym and The Alert Program concepts are embedded in this program.

Why Brain Gym?
Brain Gym is a research proven brain-integration system that uses simple, enjoyable movements and exercises that enhance learning, overall performance, and reduce stress. Brain Gym develops the brain’s neural pathways the way nature does through movement. The activities bring about rapid and often dramatic improvements in organization, memory concentration, attention deficit disorder, communication skills, reading, writing, listening, sports and performance arts, physical coordination and more. Since 1990, Brain Gym has been selected annually by the National Learning Foundation (the private sector branch of the White House Task Force on Learning) as one of today’s leading technologies for education.

What is ALERT Program?
In this program students learn what they can do before a spelling test or homework time to attain an optimal state of alertness for their tasks. Parents learn what they can do to help their toddler's nervous system change from a high alert state to a more appropriate low state at bedtime.

Although the Alert Program initially was intended for children with attention and learning difficulties, ages 8-12, it has been adapted for preschool through adult and for a variety of disabilities.

The Sensory-Motor Preference Checklist (for Adults) is a tool used to support this learning process. For example by filling out the checklist, adults may discover that before work, they may drink coffee, take a brisk walk, or listen to jazzy music to get their engine up and going for the day. Or others may find that they drink hot chocolate, rock in a rocking chair, or watch the glow of a fireplace to get their engine slowed down after a busy day. Bringing to awareness what most people do automatically in their daily routines, fosters the understanding of how important self-regulation is for students' functioning.

Why Motor Learning?
We have discovered it is easy enough to 'facilitate' a certain pattern or movement during our individual one on one clinic sessions. What is difficult is to get patients to use that pattern when they are actually carrying out some functional activity. Incorporating the concepts of Motor Learning facilitates generalizing what our clients have learnt in the therapy environment in their natural environment.

Sometimes we cause ourselves pain from the very exercises that we hope will help us. Come in to have your movement patterns assessed to ensure that you are not harming your joints when you are “taking care of yourself”.This program is highly recommended for our young athletes.

The sensory diet allows children ample opportunities to receive beneficial sensory input at frequent intervals, thereby enabling children to participate more fully in the activities that comprise their daily schedule. Implementation of the sensory diet spans all aspects of the child’s day, particularly those involving the school and home environments.

What is Sensory Diet?
In a sensory diet the therapist incorporates meaningful activities that provide specific sensory stimuli to elicit an adaptive response, thereby assisting the child in his or her overall motor and conceptual learning.

The sensory diet allows the child ample opportunities to receive beneficial sensory input at frequent intervals, thereby enabling him or her to participate more fully in the activities that comprise his or her daily schedule. Implementation of the sensory diet should span all aspects of the child’s day, particularly those involving the school and home environments. The change in environment that a parent can influence can also result in beneficial changes well beyond the reach of a therapy session. To have an optimum effect, the sensory diet should be designed for the child’s unique sensory processing needs. In this manner, the child benefits from specific sensory input that is synchronized with the recommended treatment approaches.

Useful Links

• www.sierf.org
• www.sinetwork.org
• www.devdelay.org
• www.SensoryResources.com
• www.out-of-sync-child.com