Kia ora!
Occupational Therapy & Physiotherapy for Tamariki/Children
Haere mai!
Here at Paediatric OT & PT, our therapists help babies, children, and young people to flourish and achieve their chosen occupations to the best of their abilities. Occupations can include anything from getting up in the morning to eating and drinking, riding a bike, playing with friends, or participating at school.
We use fun, engaging activities to help children succeed in meeting the daily occupations of childhood, for example, self-care, play, sleep, using a scooter, or writing a story. We are a family centred practice, providing an individualised approach focussed on your child and family goals.
We offer services for children aged 0 to 16 years who have a range of physical, neurological, cognitive, social, sensory, emotional, and developmental needs. We provide a number of different services tailored to your child's needs as well as providing coaching for families and caregivers.
Our therapists are experienced, empathetic, practical, and empowering. We partner with paediatricians, speech language therapists, and other specialists to provide a collaborative service for children and their families.
Our vision is to provide quality, best practice therapy services for families and children,
and to maximise potential and build fulfilling lives, as a team.
Our mission is to maximize each individual child’s potential and participation in life activities by providing best practice,
high quality therapy services in partnership with families.
Our values
Visit us
What we do
Children aged 0 to 16 years with:
- Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
- Developmental Coordination Disorders
- Delays in Development
- Difficulties with Information Processing
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Neurological Conditions (Cerebral Palsy, Traumatic Brain Injury)
- Other Specific Syndromes
- Prematurity
- Specific Learning Disabilities
- Sensory Processing Difficulties
- Social & Emotional Difficulties
We draw on a number of evidence-based theories and practices to develop and frame our interventions, including:
- Neurodevelopment (Bobath) information processing (Perceive, Recall, Plan and Perform model—PRPP)
- Sensory processing and integration coaching (Occupational Performance Coaching)
- Attachment and relationships (newborn behaviour observations, Touchpoints)
- Respiration (Mary Massery) Musculoskeletal, Posture and Movement
We at Paediatric OT & PT offer tele-health for all our clients. Tele-therapy is available via a secure, professional, online video conferencing platform. Your child's therapy can take place in the comfort of your own home. Therapy will be in the context of your child's familiar home environment.
Photo used with permission
Our therapy sessions, evaluations, and task analysis enable us to build bridges, remove barriers and provide strategies for you and your child to reach their goals. When working with babies and children we use fun, engaging activities to help them succeed in meeting the daily occupations of childhood, e.g., self care, play, sleep, moving physically from place to place, writing a story and relating to others.
Following assessments, strategies are put in place to enable children to master tasks that are challenging for them. Strategies are specific to your child's behaviours which are identified during the assessment process. Instructional methods are used to address behaviours, incorporating cues, prompts, strategies and preferences.
Coaching and establishing goals:
- We listen and support the goals you want your child to achieve
- We listen to your child's hopes and dreams
- We give parents the skills and knowledge to "do therapy" everyday
- We enable you to overcome the everyday barriers for your child
Family, fun, friends, fitness, future:
- Riding a bike or scooter
- Using the playground
- Meal times: eating and drinking
- Walking and crawling
- Playing with friends, toys and games
- School: writing a story and packing your bag
- Exams: special conditions
- Relating to others
- Dressing, toileting and washing self
- Interests and hobbies
- Managing self, including emotions and regulation
Assessments and approaches are linked to the Canadian Occupational Performance Model looking at a child holistically and the child's ability to do everyday tasks at school, home and community. Our paediatric Occupational therapists assess and support next steps for a range of areas in life including:
- Neuro development
- Play skills
- Sensory processing
- Information processing
- Visual processing
- Self-care and independence skills
- Emotional regulation and social skills
- School participation: learning, handwriting, friendships
- Routines and daily living tasks, organisational skills
- Children's Constipation and Incontinence, state and regulation, managing self, toilet learning competence and confidence
Physiotherapist assessments are integral to our practice. Paediatric physiotherapists assess and support next steps for a range of conditions including:
- Balance and coordination
- Constipation and children's incontinence with a focus on the pelvic floor and breathing
- Developmental delay
- Hypermobility
- Musculoskeletal
- Neurophysiological
- Pain management
- Plagiocephaly
- Respiratory conditions
- Toe walking
- Torticollis
Multidisciplinary assessments are recommended for differential diagnosis and planning for next steps for children with a range of complex needs:
- Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2)
- Autism spectrum disorder
- Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
- Congenital conditions
- Neurological conditions (e.g., cerebral palsy)
- Developmental coordination disorder (DCD)/dyspraxia
Bowel and bladder control
Bowel and bladder problems are common in childhood and can make life hard! One in five children are constipated at some point in their lives and paediatric incontinence and bedwetting problems are commonly associated with constipation. Our physiotherapists and occupational therapists can help children of all ages with constipation, daytime wee and poo leaks, bedwetting and toilet training. We take a multi-systems approach for assessment, education, and intervention. We link and align with the infant/child and their family's ability and capacity so that they can achieve the best they can in their daily lives. We work collaboratively alongside GPs and paediatricians for best outcomes, reviewing and accessing protocols and clinical reasoning.
Our team use a variety of tools to support routines, breathing, and pelvic floor function with movement. One of these tools is biofeedback. Our team of Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists have certification in The Poo Detectives management of paediatric bladder and bowel dysfunction course.
Infant massage
Join one of our infant massage group sessions. We follow the International Association of Infant Massage www.infantmassagenewzealand.org
Intensives
We run intensive therapy sessions over a week of two (occupational therapy and physiotherapy).
Lego club
Lego-based therapy is an evidence-based social-development program, where social skills are coached and practiced while the group builds a Lego set together. The children will have the opportunity to learn about turn taking, listening to and following instructions, giving instructions, collaborating and being flexible in their thinking, being able to self-regulate, developing their hand skills and most of all making friends and having fun.
National, international and the Pacific Islands
We see babies, infants and children from throughout Aotearoa/New Zealand and from the Pacific Islands.
We journey alongside families from the Pacific Islands including the Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and Tonga.
Next steps
Down Syndrome baby and infant “Next Steps” Sessional blocks.
Other group sessions
We also run group sessions for:
- Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
- Boys with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD).
- Learning to ride your bicycle sessions in the park.
Please contact us for more information about any of these special interest programmes.
We work closely with a highly experienced orthotist—SSD Ltd to provide othotics assessments and equipment.
The orthotist and a physiotherapist or occupational therapist perform neurophysiological and musculoskeletal assessments, prescription and fitting of neurophysiological devices and orthoses, to help:
- Postural control
- Proprioceptive feedback loop
- Alignment and correction
- Pain management
- Muscle strengthening
Equipment may be used to enable your child to participate in everyday tasks, for example: adapted cutlery, seating, curriculum adaptation, pencil grips, specific toys to facilitate play etc.
The F-Words Life Wheel is an interviewing and coaching approach to facilitate conversations and goal setting for children and their families, caregivers and educators. The F-Words Life Wheel was developed by Lucy Charles and Arul Hamill of Paediatric OT NZ, and Kelly Reynolds from Kidsplus Australia in collaboration with CanChild Canada.
In 2011, Rosenbaum and Gorter developed CanChild’s six F-Words that focus on childhood development domains: Function, Family, Fitness, Fun, Friends, and Future. The F-Words build upon the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework. CanChild hoped to encourage people in the childhood development field to adopt a more inclusive, strengths-based way of thinking and to apply these concepts in their work with children with disabilities and their families.
Building on the work done by Rosenbaum and Gorter and CanChild’s F-words research group, and utilising coaching tools and techniques, Lucy, Arul and Kelly developed the F-Words Life Wheel. They have found this an invaluable tool for facilitating rich and meaningful conversations and enabling meaningful goal setting, based on what is important to children and families in their given contexts and situations. A copy of our book entitled, The F-words Life Wheel is available here.
If you are interested in F-words Life Wheel training for youself or your team, please get in touch on our contact page with your expression of interest. Checkout our events signup page for upcoming Fav-words Life Wheel workshops.
We provide the following training and workshops:
- Knowledge translation workshops
- Clinical reasoning workshops
- F-Words Life Wheel workshops
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)
- Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)
- Occupational Performance Coaching (OPC) training with Lucy Charles and Arul Hamill
- Perceive, Recall, Plan and Perform (PRPP) Stage 1 workshops with Arul Hamill and Wendy Burrows
Lucy Charles and Arul Hamill are registered OTNZ supervisors. We provide both professional and clinical supervision. Please contact us if you would like to organise supervision sessions.
Please contact us for current information or if you or your service would like us to run a workshop for your team.
In our therapy for children and families who live with disability we work to promote wellbeing and to reduce inequalities. We believe that caring for Earth is the first step in caring for people. Our key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are:
- Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all, at all ages
- Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Reduce inequality within and among countries
Want to be part of our team?
Do you want to make a difference in the lives of children and families?
Do you want to work in a progressive team passionate about best practice and ongoing professional development?
Are you a New Zealand Registered Occupational Therapist with extensive experience in paediatrics with a passion to keep learning?
We are looking for an occupational therapist with a special interest in paediatrics
to work contractually in our private practice of Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists.
The successful applicant will be able to build strong responsive relationships with children and their families,
work in a multidisciplinary community of care with Paediatricians & SLTs,
and be passionate about best practice and ongoing professional development.
Applicants can submit their application and CV in confidence.
Please include your professional qualifications and experience, and why you would like to work at
Paediatric OT & physiotherapy.
Please Contact Us for more information
F-words Life Wheel Research Presentation
Arul, Lucy and other researchers present F-words Life Wheel research to the Starship Paediatric Update session, July 2022.
Contact us
Resources
Colleagues
Clare Stanley, Developmental Paediatrician
Moira Nelson, Speech Language Therapist
Annabelle Borrie, Physiotherapist
Wendy Hindmarsh-Hook, Occupational Therapist
Caroline Hui, Occupational Therapist
Claire Bennet, Speech Language Therapist
Totally Psyched
Dr Katie Tuck
The Kids Plus Foundation
The Hearing House
Carolyn Simmons, Occupational Therapist
Lisa Da Rocha, Clinical and Paediatric Neuropsychologist
Fiona Kentworthy
Fi Graham, Occupational Therapist, Occupational Performance Coaching (OPC)
Anne Tait, Paediatrician, Auckland Paediatrics
Organisations
International Association of Infant Massage
Occupational Performance Model (Australia)
Tips for parents
Education tools for wellbeing
![Sensory Project, ASI WISE, Ayres’ Sensory Integration WISE [Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England]](https://paediatricot.nz/img/org-asiwise.jpg)
Aotearoa NZ Therapy Boards
