Would you like your child to:

• Follow simple instructions
• Use cutlery, or eat independently
• Get themselves to sleep independently at night
• Dress or undress themselves
• Tie their shoe laces
• Brush their teeth independently
• Get themselves ready for school in the morning
• Develop the social skills they will need every day to interact with others?

SDN can support you, your family and your child to make these goals a reality.

Your child is unique and will have unique goals, strengths and weaknesses. So we start by getting to know your child, building up a picture of their strengths and the areas they need to develop to meet their goals.

We then break down your child’s goals into simple steps and work with their strengths and interests to encourage their development.

Therapy will take place where your child lives, learns and plays so that the skills they learn are reinforced in their everyday life. We will go into your child’s school or preschool to help us understand more about your child and so we can work with their teachers to build their strengths.

Because our therapists work in a transdisciplinary team, you have access to the type of support your child will need, as they need it. We will make the most of SDN’s diverse team of professional occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech pathologists and early childhood specialists, utilising their specialist expertise when your child needs it most.

Some of the things we might work on include:

• Developing fine motor skills such as the finger and hand skills needed for activities like as brushing teeth, opening lunch boxes, tying shoelaces and doing up buttons
• Developing children’s pre-writing skills, like grip strength and learning to hold a pencil
• Building gross motor skills that will help them with everyday activities like getting on and off the toilet and standing to dress
• Breaking down bigger activities like going to the toilet, or packing and unpacking a school bag into step by step processes and assisting your child to understand these steps through the use of visuals, modelling appropriate behaviour, or other therapy tools.