Our occupational therapist (OT) Monica Danfelser, OTR has a wealth of experience from her 16+ years in Pediatric Occupational Therapy. She brings the valuable knowledge of servicing children and families in a variety of pediatric settings including the NICU, early intervention programs, school systems, home settings, and clinical settings. Moreover, Monica participates in Emerge’s multidisciplinary evaluation process providing a comprehensive assessment of each child’s current level of self-care, play, sensory processing, motor skills, and self-help, as well as utilizing a variety of treatment techniques to facilitate improvement in deficit areas. Families and individuals seeking occupational services can choose weekly individual sessions or consultation with parents and/or other professionals.

About Occupational Therapy Services (OT)

The definition of occupation is “that which chiefly engages one’s time”. For a child this includes self-care (feeding, dressing, hygiene, etc.), play, school and as they get older, work activities. Just as there are developmental milestones for talking and walking, there are also developmental milestones for hand use, eye-hand coordination (visual motor skills), visual perception (what we see and what our brain interprets), and self-help. Occupational therapy assesses these different areas that are instrumental in acquiring occupational skills. Another area which occupational therapy is involved in is sensory processing. Sensory processing is how one responds to one of the six basic systems including auditory (hearing), visual, vestibular (movement), touch, multi-sensory (multiple senses), and oral (mouth area) input.

Why is Occupational Therapy Important?

We need development and refinement in many skills to be successful in our lives as we grow. For example, we need dexterity to develop in our hands to do harder and more refined activities. If you watch an infant trying to pick up a Cheerio, he will use his entire hand to “rake” at it and attempt to grasp it. An older child will adeptly pick up that Cheerio with the tip of his thumb and index finger. An older child should be able to zipper, write with a crayon, feed themselves with a spoon, and cut with scissors. If the development is impeded, higher level skills will not be accomplished which will affect many components of one’s life. Moreover, Sensory processing difficulties can effect how one interacts with their environment, with other people, their emotional and behavioral responses, their ability to attend, their activity level, and more. Certainly people have individual responses to input, but if the processing is deficient and limiting one’s growth or fulfillment in life, occupational therapy can be effective treatment.

Areas of Concern:

• My child does not use silverware.
• My child only likes certain clothes.
• My child holds her pencil in a unique way.
• My child likes to play next to kids, but not with them.

Other ways an Occupational Therapist can help:

• Birth injuries, learning difficulties, or developmental disabilities such as autism or cerebral palsy
• Mental health difficulties such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, AD/HD and post-traumatic stress syndrome
• Visual, perceptual or cognitive impairments
• Sensory processing disorders
• Obsessive compulsions, or diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Physical, cognitive or psychological limitations following a stroke, brain injury or heart attack
• Fractures or other injuries from falls, sports injuries, or accidents