Programs & Services:
Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy is a profession devoted to promoting development and health through purposeful, meaningful activities. It is part of a treatment for overcoming an illness, injury, and/or developmental or psychological impairment. Our goal is to help people regain, develop, and build skills for independent function, health, well being, security, and happiness.

At Blind Children's Learning Center, we provide Occupational Therapy services on many levels. We offer evaluation, consultation, and direct therapy services. A large part of our program is individual therapy services. Each class also attends a weekly sensory motor group. We have a large motor room filled with mats, equipment, suspended swings, tactile media, and toys. As Occupational Therapists work with visually impaired children, we assess neuromuscular and sensory foundations as they relate to acquiring developmental, behavioral, and functional skills.

We initially identify levels of motor skills, adaptive/self help skills, feeding and oral motor skills, social skills, play skills, and the child's ability to process and respond appropriately to sensory information in their environment. This includes not only the five senses we commonly think of (sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste), but also our hidden senses like vestibular (sense that defines our bodies in space) and proprioceptive senses (judges our body parts in relation to each other) to provide us with crucial information on movement and feedback from our muscles and joints or out position sense.

These are important senses, especially for a child with visual impairment because they relate directly to the child's ability to move through space and also to know and sense where your body is in space. For example these senses tell us if we're standing up or how high we need to lift our foot up to walk up stairs. Because visually impaired children may develop differently, it is essential that they receive early intervention. When a child has delays in the areas assessed, The OT evaluates and identifies factors attributing to their lack of development. She then sets up a specially designed treatment plan with goals. By using therapeutic activities and exercises, which are done in the context of play, the child remains interested and challenged at just the right level to develop mastery of their preceptor senses.

If you walk by the Occupational Therapy room at Blind Children's Learning Center, you may see children swinging on a trapeze, bouncing on a large ball, climbing across an obstacle course, or playing in a large box of beans. Although they certainly are playing and having fun, they are also working toward developing the skills they need to successfully master their environment. It is through developing a sense of mastery over their movements and knowledge of their environment that children with visual impairment will ultimately have more confidence and independence at school, home and in the community.