Paediatric Occupational Therapy is aimed at supporting your child to overcome any developmental obstacles that impact on their ability to participate in their everyday lives, including self-care, play, social and academic tasks. An occupational therapist will look at a child’s sensory-motor and perceptual development to ascertain whether there are any developmental gaps that need to be remediated. It also aims to support and equip the child’s parents, teachers, and other role players to ensure that the child reaches their full potential.  Here at VLC, we will utilise various specialised treatment approaches such as Ayres© Sensory Integration and DIR©/Floortime to ensure effective treatment.

Occupational therapy treats the following conditions:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy

• Low muscle tone and poor coordination

• Fine motor difficulties

• Congenital deficits such as Down Syndrome

• Sensory Processing Disorders

• Developmental delays

• Learning difficulties

• Delays due to trauma

• Behavioural difficulties secondary to sensory or developmental delays

Speech is much more than just talking! A child needs to be able to understand what they hear, process what they hear, and to convert their understanding into responses. Additionally, children need to have the motor and sensory ability to be able to verbalise what they want to say. This is a complex process and an interplay between various neurological systems. Being able to speak is one of the most advanced and coordinated motor tasks that you can undertake. Speech and language therapy aims to improve and overcome any barriers to verbal communication by focusing on the development of language skills. This therapy also aims to improve the skills necessary for the understanding and the production of speech.

Advocating for our learners' needs and creating a system of resources and services is guided by our educational psychological support. This is where we support our learners, parents, guardians, and mentors by addressing learning and developmental challenges. With a focus on holisitc development, we can create a comprehensive support plan with our team's collaboration and our inclusive learning environments.

We believe that our learners should be provided with opportunities to explore and express their emotions, thoughts, and experiences. Through the use of counselling and play therapy our learner's mental health and well-being is supported. This support addresses their emotional and behavioural needs through the natural medium of play. Counselling and Play Therapy occurs within a safe environment that will guide the improvement of emotional regulation, social skill development, and developing a stronger sense of self.

In remedial therapy we focus on developing skills rather than simply covering content. We provide one-on-one structured sessions that support learning difficulties and bridge the gap between our learners' current abilities and their potential abilities. Remedial therapy seeks to address the emotional impact of learning challenges, to reduce academic stress and anxiety along with increasing our learner's confidence by guiding their ability to develop strategies for managinnig learning challenges. 

Improving our learners' social, emotional, and cognitive functioning is supported through our Animal Assisted Therapy that incorporates human and animal interaction. Animals can support our emotional well-being and reduce stress. Our learners will experience an increase in social engagement and emotional regulation within a controlled environment with structured activities. The mere presence of these animals is a non-judgemental presence with petting, cuddling, and various activities that can guide improvement in memory, attention, problem-solving skills, balance, and co-ordination.

We believe in equipping our parents and teachers to the greatest extent as together we are key to the child’s progress. We offer specific courses and training on various topics as well as assist with the integration of therapy programmes and child-specific support within the classroom and home environment.