Learning to Tie Shoelaces

By: Ashley Akers, M.S. OTR/L

 

As an occupational therapist who works daily on increasing independence in daily living skills such as dressing, tying shoelaces is a common activity that parents find difficult for their children to learn and master. That makes total sense because tying shoelaces is a complex skill! Tying shoelaces requires fine motor dexterity, bilateral coordination, visual perceptual skills, and hand strength among many other skills.

Below are some activities that can serve as good practice before your child begins learning how to tie their shoes, as these activities incorporate the skills tying shoes requires:

1.      Ripping paper/cards for increased hand strength

2.      Navigating through obstacle courses which helps to understand directionality concepts such as under, over, around, and through

3.      Lacing games, constructional toys, and paper weaving

General tips to make tying shoes as easy as possible:

1. Start by practicing with the shoe or practice board on the table. It is more difficult to complete when the shoe is on.

2. Use two different colored laces.

3. Make sure the laces are long enough and use thicker laces.

4. Put dots on the laces to show your child where to hold the lace.

 

More information and activity ideas can be found at the link below to address the underlying skills required to master tying shoes!

https://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/how-to-tie-shoelaces.html

Picky Eater Mealtime Strategies

By Rebecca Turner, MA, CCC/SLP 

Mealtime can be frustrating when you have a child who is very picky about the foods that they will eat.  I wanted to share with you some strategies or things you can be doing at home to help with some of those Picky Eating behaviors. 

 

1.     Schedule meal and snack times -Be consistent with when you eat and limit snacks or juices.  If your child is snacking all day, they won’t be hungry.

2.     Let your child help plan and prepare meals – Children love to feel like they are contributing, and preparation builds an appetite and teaches responsibility.  Even young kids can help with stirring or adding ingredients.

3.     Make Food Fun – Present food in new and exciting ways: pizza with a face out of pepperoni and vegetables, ants on a log, etc. There are also several fun placemats and plates like the one pictured above, that make eating into a game.

4.     Food Play: If your child is very resistant to try a certain food, allowing them to do some food play, where the goal is interacting with the food, not necessarily eating it, may help.  Using carrot sticks to stir soup or use ketchup to ‘paint’ with the broccoli

5.     Offer them choices. Rather than ask, “Do you want broccoli for dinner?” ask “Which would you like for dinner, broccoli or green beans?”  This allows them to have a little bit of control over the food choice.

6.     Tasting plate:  Offer the same foods for the whole family.  Pass it around and let everyone take one or two things to try. Talk about the colors, shapes, and textures on the plate.  The more kids are exposed and understand, the more willing they will be to try. 

7.     Exposure: Keep exposing them to the foods, don’t just try once and stop.  The more familiar they are with seeing the food, the more willing they are to try it. Also, be sure to set realistic expectations.   They won’t eat ½ cup of peas, but if they eat 5 it is a step in the right direction!

A great resource for more information on healthy balanced meals, recipes, and activities for kids and adults is www.choosemyplate.org

Articulation Practice with Books

By: Brittany Haller, MS, CCC-SLP

Articulation is defined as “the formation of clear and distinct sounds in speech.” When a child substitutes one speech sound for another, such as “wabbit” for “rabbit,” we can target the correct sound production through speech therapy. Speech-Language Pathologists can work on articulation in a lot of different ways, but one of my favorite ways is by using books. Parents can also use “sound-loaded” books to practice target speech sound production at home.

Sound-loaded books are simply books that have a certain sound in them frequently. When reading these books aloud with your child, you can pause and focus on the words that have their target sounds. Using books for speech practice allows you to not only work on articulation, but to also target language, literacy, and even social skills! It can be a fun, interactive way to learn.

You may be wondering where to start with using sound-loaded books for practicing speech at home. If you haven’t already received a copy of your child’s speech therapy goals, I recommended obtaining a copy to familiarize yourself with which sounds they are working on, as well as what level they are working on (single words, phrases, sentences, etc.) Then, find a book that is loaded with your child’s target speech sounds. I recommend the following source: https://www.speechsproutstherapy.com/2015/01/sound-loaded-storybooks-for.html However, if you search “sound-loaded books for articulation” on the internet, you will find many wonderful resources.

After you have familiarized yourself with your child’s goals and have received your books…HAVE FUN! Don’t be afraid to get silly or creative. You can prompt your child to repeat the target words, talk about the pictures, relate the content to your own experiences, and anything else that helps them practice those correct productions. 

Yoga and its Therapeutic Benefits

Yoga and its Therapeutic Benefits

By: Ashley Akers M.S. OTR/L

One of my favorite therapeutic activities is yoga! Why? I love that it is easily accessible to families because no materials are required! Yoga also has a wide range of benefits and works on many skills at the same time. To name just a few, yoga works on:

1.      Overall body strengthening, especially with core and postural muscles

2.      Proprioception or body awareness skills

3.      Improving balance and the vestibular system

4.      Crossing midline or reaching across the body to the opposite side- an important skill for so many daily tasks like writing and dressing

5.      Motor planning skills

6.      Self-regulation! Yoga encourages self-awareness and teaches children tools to manage feeling overwhelmed or stressed such as deep breathing and relaxation techniques

Good poses to start with when first working on yoga with your kiddo:

1.      Tree Pose

2.      Downward Dog

3.      Mountain Pose

4.      Child’s Pose

5.      Cat/Cow Pose

**Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube is a great channel to start**

Tools to Grow also offers great resources: https://www.toolstogrowot.com/therapy-resources/gross-motor/pediatric-yoga

Ready, Set, Play!

Ready, Set, Play!

By: Brittany Haller, MS, CCC-SLP

I couldn’t tell you how many times I have had both children and adults tell me “You’re so lucky to be an SLP! All you do is play all day!” I have to admit that they are not wrong. What people may not realize is how important play is for speech and language development. In fact, there are even developmental milestones for different types of play!

The following link will show you more about the wonderful world of play: https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/welcome-to-kid-confidential/full/

You will see a chart that goes over types of play, descriptions of those types, age norms, and several great examples of each type. With so many great benefits....I say “ready, set, play!”

How to Encourage Development of Scissor Skills

How to Encourage Development of Scissor Skills

By: Ashley Akers M.S. OTR/L

Cutting is a foundational activity for children that incorporates so many great skills children need to learn! To name just a few, cutting addresses fine motor strengthening skills, bilateral coordination, sequencing, attention to task, and visual motor skills (eye-hand coordination).

Parents are often surprised when I tell them that cutting skills begin EARLY! Kiddos should be working on snipping paper by age TWO! Yes, 2!  So, how can you encourage the development of scissor skills?

1.      Practice the sequence of opening/closing various items such as tweezers/tongs, squirt bottles, and chip clips.

2.      Tear paper! This is an important prerequisite skill to using scissors.

3.      Always encourage your kiddo to hold their scissors in a “thumbs-up position” i.e your kiddos’ thumb should be in the top, small hole when cutting. (You can make it easier for your kiddo to remember this by placing a sticker on top of the thumb hole).

4.      Before snipping paper, start with snipping Play-Doh!

5.      When kiddos are first learning, using spring-loaded or loop scissors can help decrease their frustration as they provide more assistance and require less strength.

Here is an excellent handout from Super Duper Publications to help you with developing your little one's scissor skills! https://www.superduperinc.com/handouts/pdf/140_Scissor%20skills.pdf

Speech Therapy Treatment Technique: Offering Choices

Speech Therapy Treatment Technique:

Offering Choices

By Rebecca Turner, CCC, SLP

 

Offering choices is a wonderful therapy technique to elicit language.  It can be used with kiddos who are non-verbal where you are targeting pointing to or looking at a specific object, all the way to those kiddos who working on expanding their sentence length to multiple words.  This technique helps to increase communication, but it also gives the child a little bit of control over their environment.  

There are hundreds of opportunities throughout the day to offer choices, it does not have to be solely play based!  If you do choose to utilize toys, some of my favorite ones to use when targeting this skill are puzzles, trains, and Mr. Potato Head, but you can do this with anything that has more than one option. 

1.     You need a way to hold the pieces, either a bag, container or simply putting the pieces in your lap.  This is VERY important because if the child can independently access the toys, it gives them NO reason to communicate. 

2.     You want to make sure child is in front of you so that you can have good eye contact and engagement. You want to get them excited about the toy and this can be done with your facial expressions, voice and possibly demonstrating the toy, especially if it is not a toy the child is familiar with.  You also want to decrease the distractions in the environment, like turning off the tv, putting away other toys, etc so that they can focus on the language being presented.

3.     Once you have set up the interaction, you are going to take 2 of the items.  Using your “Tell me face”, which is eyebrows raised so they know you want them to respond, label the items and move them toward the child.  You want to make sure that you provide that verbal model in clear, simple language.  For example, Do you want “car or train”, “car or train”.

4.     Repeat the options if they do not respond.  The type of response you are targeting varies depending on the level of the child. 

5.     If they grab both items, don’t give them the objects, we want them to make a choice of 1 item, so model the choices again.  Then if they are still grabbing both, model and give one of the items to them.

Making choices is the foundation for establishing the importance of the need to communicate with your child, even if they are just pointing to an object and unable to verbalize! 

Continued Re-opening of Amazing Kidz Therapy

As Amazing Kidz Therapy has begun its reopening process this week. We wanted to share with everyone what the remaining re-opening schedule will look like so that everyone can begin to make more regular appointments.

Week of May 25:

-        AKT will be closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day

-        Two therapists will be present and seeing clients in the clinic each day. Here is the schedule for this week:

o   Tuesday: Miss Kat – 9am to 5pm; Miss Becky – 11am to 5pm

o   Wednesday: Miss Ashley and Miss Brittany – 9am to 5pm

o   Thursday: Miss Ashley – 9am to 5pm; Miss Becky – 11am to 5pm

o   Friday: Miss Kat and Miss Brittany – 9am to 5pm

-        Therapists will continue to offer Teletherapy sessions throughout the week. This is an option for those that do not feel comfortable returning just yet and/or are unable to come in at the aforementioned times. If you have had a standing Teletherapy time it will remain as scheduled, even if your therapist is in the office on that day.

Starting June 1^st therapists will all resume their regular hours within the clinic. All therapists will continue to offer Teletherapy to clients to prefer that delivery mode.

All of our precautions will remain in place, including:

·        Our staff WILL be wearing face masks. We recognize that this may be scary for some of our children, so we ask that if you are choosing to return to the office that you begin wearing a mask in front of your child to work to desensitizing them.

·        We expect all adults to wear face masks when in the office. We encourage children who are able to tolerate masks to wear them in the office as well. This is for your safety as well as ours.

·        When choosing an in-person appointment, you will be asked the following questions PRIOR to us taking your child back into a treatment room:

a.      Has anyone in your house been confirmed OR suspected to have COVID19 in the past 14 days?

b.      Have you been in contact with anyone with confirmed OR suspected COVID19 in the past 14 days?

c.      Does anyone within your house have a fever or cough at this time?

d.      Have you or anyone in your house traveled in the past 30 days?

·        If your answer to any of the above is Yes, your child will not be seen in person on that day. We ask that with knowing this in advance, if the answer is Yes, that you do not schedule an in-person appointment until you can answer No to all of the above questions.

·        Families are asked NOT to come into the building upon arrival. Parents are to call the office from their car when they have arrived in the parking lot. Once it is time for your child’s appointment, the office will call the parent/caregiver to notify them that they may enter. This is to assist with keeping every family socially distancing.

·        The waiting room will remain closed. If you are not accompanying your child into the treatment session you are asked to wait for them in your vehicle.

·        No more than 1 person is to accompany the child into the clinic. If you have other children with you, we can meet you outside to collect your child and can then bring your child back out to you when their session is complete.

·        All visitors entering the clinic will have their temperatures taken to ensure that no one is entering with an elevated temp.

·        All payments MUST be made over the phone with your credit card PRIOR to beginning your child’s appointment. This can be done when you arrive in the parking lot or ahead of time. We can also run it manually if you have completed a Credit Card Authorization Form.

·        All treatment rooms and equipment/toys are being disinfected after each treatment.

·        A very strict cleaning schedule has been implemented for numerous times throughout the day in all common areas.

Although we plan to be physically reopened at this time with the highest level of precautions being taken, we understand this may not be an option for some of our families. We are continuing to offer virtual services. This is another mode of us to deliver high quality services to your child to prevent regression and continue with their progress. We have seen tremendous success with this delivery method over the past several weeks. ALL group therapy offerings will remain virtual only at this point. We want to inform all clients that as of June 1^st all of our Private Pay services, both in person and Teletherapy visits, will be $60/30 minutes.

Our business office will begin contacting families to begin scheduling appointments for next week as well as for regularly scheduled visits starting in June.

We thank you all very much for your continued patience with us, as we all transition to a new norm within the office. We are working are very hardest to keep the environment as safe as possible for everyone, which will take extra time from our normal daily routine.

We are so very excited to see you all very soon! Stay well.

Developmental Norms and Early Intervention

Developmental Norms and Early Intervention

By: Brittany Haller, MS, CCC-SLP

As an SLP, I receive countless texts, Facebook messages, and phone calls from friends and family members regarding their children’s speech and language development. These parents are typically trying to find out whether or not they should seek a formal evaluation for their kiddo(s). You should know that I am never bothered by these questions, and love that I am able to provide information and resources to them. However, not everyone has an SLP for a sister, or was able to stay in touch with the girl from their high school who grew up to seek her degree in Speech-Language Pathology. So, where do you turn when you start to have concerns and can’t just reach out to your friendly neighborhood SLP?

I personally recommend the website below:

https://www.speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35:admin&catid=2:uncategorised&Itemid=117

Caroline Bowen provides accurate information on developmental norms in all areas of communication. The information is very well organized, and easy to understand.

Being aware of the developmental norms is crucial because early intervention is such a powerful thing. Research has found that diagnosing a speech/language disorder at an earlier age can lead to increased progress through speech-language therapy. If you have increased questions/concerns after familiarizing yourself with typical speech and language development, I highly recommend seeking an evaluation with a local speech-language pathologist. More information on the benefits of early intervention can be found using the link below:

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/whyActEarly.html

Parents:Therapist Teletherapy Relationship

Parents Are Great Teachers to Therapists

By: Ashley Akers, M.S. OTR/L

Due to COVID-19, telehealth (the provision of healthcare remotely via electronic information and telecommunication technologies), has seemingly overnight changed how therapists around the world provide services. As an occupational therapist who is used to working hands-on with her kiddos daily (maybe to correct pencil grip or to provide deep pressure to facilitate calming for example), telehealth has admittedly been a novel experience in which I have had to quickly expand my thinking about how I provide services.

A question I have often asked myself during these times is: “How can I make sure telehealth is as effective and as helpful as possible for my kiddos’ and their families?” This question led me to research about OT and telehealth, and in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting to find too much. Let me tell you that I was pleasantly surprised! There ARE studies out there and studies still being done right now that are empowering us therapists to better understand telehealth and how to use it to serve YOU. One article I really enjoyed reading discussed parents’ perspectives on occupational therapy services through telehealth. Listed below are recurring themes that were identified from the parents in the study “Parent Perspectives Of An Occupational Therapy Telehealth Intervention” from the University of Kansas (2019) that were big “take-aways” for me:

 1) Parents believed that telehealth was COMPATIBLE with their daily life and parents’ goals for their children. Many parents felt that OT through telehealth better addressed their concerns and goals for their children than other practice settings such as schools, or even outpatient. (Wow! This is all we want as OT’s- to improve our kiddos independence in their daily lives in a way that is meaningful to the kiddo and their family! This was hands-down the biggest take-away for me. I have had first-hand experience with this in the past few weeks, when some of you have told me that certain goals are not high on your priority list but other skills I hadn’t considered are! I am grateful you told me because now I can better help your family! I need to make sure that first and foremost I am addressing what you value as important for your child to learn and that is my commitment to you all.)

2)  Parents found telehealth to be CONVENIENT for their schedules and made therapy accessible to more children

3) Parents believed that telehealth allowed therapy to be more COLLABORATIVE

4) Parents reported a feeling of EMPOWERMENT to better help their children as they tried new strategies and were able to problem-solve with the therapist (I loved this one!! Parents, you all have become rock stars during this time! I have been continuously impressed with how well you all have been working on goals outside of sessions. A parent the other day told me “He has been holding his crayon with a tripod grasp and his 1:1 reinforcement schedule has helped him to stay motivated” and that was a GREAT encouragement to me and exactly why I love being an OT!!)

As much as we may “teach”, you all as parents are so valuable to us and teach us just as much, if not more! So, in reading this study, I want to ask all you parents out there some of the questions from this insightful study which include:

1) What do you like most about telehealth?

2) What do you like least about telehealth? (Tell me! We want to know.)

3) How has telehealth been different from your past experiences with therapy sessions, whether good or bad?

You can read the full study at the link below, just click “Download the PDF”: http://telerehab.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/Telerehab/article/view/6274

More great research about the benefits AND challenges of telehealth can be found at:

https://otpotential.com/blog/research-articles-about-telehealth-ot

                                                                              References

WALLISCH, Anna et al. Parent Perspectives of an Occupational Therapy Telehealth Intervention. International Journal of Telerehabilitation, [S.l.], v. 11, n. 1, p. 15-22, June 2019. ISSN 1945-2020. doi:https://doi.org/10.5195/ijt.2019.6274.

COVID 19 Re-Opening Plan

Amazing Kidz Therapy has continued to closely monitor this unusual situation that we are all facing with COVID19. We have analyzed the advice of the U.S. Dept of State, local authorities and the CDC to assist us in determining what the best next steps are for us to help maintain the safety and well being of our children and therapists. We know how important therapy is to our families and we want to be able to return to the office to provide in person sessions as soon as we feel that it is appropriate and safe. It is with all of the above in consideration, that AKT has made the decision to begin re-opening our office on Monday, May 18^th. This re-opening will be gradual, as well as fluid, as we will need to continue to closely monitor the situation. Here is what this re-opening will look like:

-        Only one therapist will be present and seeing clients at a time in the clinic. Each therapist will be treating clients on only one weekday with the following schedule:

o   Miss Kat (OT) – Monday afternoons

o   Miss Brittany (ST) – Tuesday mornings

o   Miss Becky (ST) – Thursday afternoons

o   Miss Ashley (OT) – Friday mornings

-        Therapists will continue to offer Teletherapy sessions on the other days of the week as well as the times they are not in person for sessions, as scheduled. This is an option for those that do not feel comfortable returning just yet and/or are unable to come in at the aforementioned times.

We want to inform all of our families that our staff WILL be wearing face masks. We recognize that this may be scary for some of our children, so we ask that if you are choosing to return to the office that you begin wearing a mask in front of your child to work to desensitizing them. We also encourage you all to wear face masks when in the office. This is for your safety as well as ours.

When choosing an in-person appointment, you will be asked the following questions PRIOR to us taking your child back into a treatment room:

1.      Has anyone in your house been confirmed OR suspected to have COVID19 in the past 14 days?

2.      Have you been in contact with anyone with confirmed OR suspected COVID19 in the past 14 days?

3.      Does anyone within your house have a fever or cough at this time?

4.      Have you or anyone in your house traveled outside of the state in the past 14 days?

If your answer to any of the above is Yes, your child will not be seen in person on that day. We ask that with knowing this in advance, if the answer is Yes, that you do not schedule an in-person appointment until you can answer No to all of the above questions.

Families are asked NOT to come into the building upon arrival. Parents are to call the office from their car when they have arrived in the parking lot. Once it is time for your child’s appointment, the office will call the parent/caregiver to notify them that they may enter. This is to assist with keeping every family socially distancing and not having more than one family in the waiting room at a time.

We are intent on maintaining the highest standards in cleanliness and disinfecting, taking all necessary and preventative steps set forth by healthcare professionals. We are taking additional daily measures to ensure the business in continuously cleaned during business hours, and overnight to the highest sanitary standards during this time. Here is what you can expect from AKT during this time:

1.      In an effort to minimize frequently touched items in which cleaning after each use would be impossible, we have closed the additional waiting room.

2.      We ask no that more than 1 person accompany the child into the clinic. If you have other children with you, we can meet you outside to collect your child and can then bring your child back out to you when their session is complete.

3.      All visitors entering the clinic will have their temperatures taken to ensure that no one is entering with an elevated temp.

4.      All treatment rooms and equipment/toys are being disinfected after each treatment.

5.      A very strict cleaning schedule has been implemented for numerous times throughout the day in all common areas.

6.      We are asking that all parents/caregivers pay over the phone with your credit card PRIOR to beginning your child’s appointment. This can be done when you arrive in the parking lot or ahead of time. We can also run it manually if you have completed a Credit Card Authorization Form, which is attached.

7.      Clients and staff are asked to continue to follow basic personal sanitary protocol, including frequent hand washing, etc.

8.      We are advising that you continue to adhere strictly to our Sickness Policy, for both kids and any family member accompanying the child. No one should enter the premises with symptoms of illness and should remain off premises for 24 hour following their final symptoms. This includes all coughs, sore throats, runny noses, etc, despite of what you believe the reason to be (ie allergies, common cold, etc).

Although we plan to begin to physically reopen at this time with the highest level of precautions being taken, we understand this may not be an option for some of our families. We are continuing to offer virtual services. This is another mode of us to deliver high quality services to your child to prevent regression and continue with their progress. We have seen tremendous success with this delivery method over the past several weeks. ALL group therapy offerings will remain virtual only at this point.

Our business office will begin contacting families on Monday, May 4^th to offer in-person slots beginning on May 18^th, should you be interested. 

We thank you all very much for your continued support during these challenging and worrisome times. As a small business, it is only thru our families that continue to support us that we can remain open and offering services to your children. We truly thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we cannot wait to begin to see you all again!

Thru the Looking Glass

Thru the Looking Glass

By Kathleen Pici, OTR/L, CAS

As a therapist, I feel like I fell thru the looking glass in March. I entered a whole new world in which some things seemed bigger, others smaller, and a variety of colors that I had not seen before. Nothing seemed to work the way I was used to, my learned skills for 18 years did not work the same in this world, and I had to interact with people in a way that was completely foreign to me. I was in the looking glass.

But was I..

As therapists we are trained to use ourselves. We are skilled to be able to adapt on the spot, to change our direction, and be able to join the world of those that we serve to best help them achieve their goals. Was this new place I was now in so different from what I had been doing for this many years OR did I just need to change my looking glass?

The therapists that I know and respect have all been in this place. And we have all had to put a different pair of lenses on due to the instant enactment of Teletherapy. And what those glasses have done is show us some clarity. Therapists have trained for this for their whole career...even before it started. As students we were tested and quizzed on making adaptations with little more than what was in our existing room. That is our new temporary world! Again, we have trained for this forever!

What has happened in this whole new world is the exploration of activities to do with kids that they can replicate in their homes, ways to engage parents like never before, and therapists being able to engage their skills to the highest and most coveted level (ps we all crave this daily and love when new challenges are presented although we may be scared at first!).  We now, more than ever, have been able to show parents and families just how meaningful what we do in their daily life is. We have been invited into homes via webcams and cell phones to provide our kiddos with that craved normalcy and we have DELIVERED!

So what happens when we step back thru the looking glass? When the world returns to "normal". We are now armed with a brighter picture, a bigger scope, and the confidence to know that we can overcome falling down the rabbit hole. We will view things differently and know that we ARE better therapists. We concurred the Jabberwocky, came out braver, and our kiddos came out stronger.

So, who wants to step thru the looking glass with me?

Telehealth - cha cha cha changes

There is a bit of pop culture injection in to this blog, you have been warned. : )

Just as David Bowie sang in 1971... Cha Cha Cha Changes.... and we are experiencing just that, on many fronts these days. One of the many areas is healthcare's overnight transition to telehealth services.

The families we serve can face many challenges when it comes to this new world and who better than a therapist to assist them through it all. Children without social engagement, children who don't thrive on social engagement, but it is the best thing for them to grow their skills and there is limited opportunity. Children that are now home schooled, while parents try to work and balance it all. Maybe it is the anxiety of the level of engagement and cooperation of your child during a telehealth session, access to technology and internet connection that can support a consistent web stream for a live session, having to prepare supplies prior to a treatment (where a clinic had this responsibility prior), and these are just to name a few.

Therapists are facing a new world also, to some therapists it can seem like  "What a world, what a world, I'm melting"  (Wicked Witch of the West).  However, we have seen that our team has stepped up to the plate to continue services, while bringing our AKT families along for the journey.

Not unlike most telehealth sessions our team faces the dreaded poor connection, technology not working, and families that are not overly familiar with technology. In addition therapists are combating learning a new technology and working virtually thru a parents digits and limbs to conduct physical actions they typically would perform themselves with a child.

so what does this all really equate to?

Here is the breakdown on what this really means.

1. We are all changing and learning together
2. We are learning day-by-day that what seemed impossible or undesired is becoming feasible and dare I say.... enjoyable?
3. Technology is not as foreign to children as it is to some adults.... children like screen time and cool interactive technology, and cameras, and the ability to see themselves on the screen. Let's use that and create a normalcy of interaction thru technology and family involvement in treatments.
4. we are all in this together!

"we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun" (Terry Jacks 1974).... let this be another season in the sun and hopefully soon we can all experience it in person together again, but never forget this "season in the sun".

by Gino Pici, COO
Amazing Kidz Therapy, PLLC

Commercial Insurance Coverage for Telehealth in Florida

As of today Florida Blue (Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida) issued an update to providers that Amazing Kidz Therapy received, it states that Telehealth for PT, OT, and ST will be covered for services with an effective date of March 15th, 2020.  We are continuing to evaluate the full billing requirements and will be most comfortable when we see claims being paid, but this is good news just the same that commercial insurances are coming to the table so that families can continue to get services they need.

The Florida Blue update comes approximately 1 week after United Healthcares (pending claim payment to AKT) announcement that they would be covering Telehealth for PT, OT, and ST and approximatly 2 weeks after Tri-Care announced coverage (we have received payment on claims).

Amazing Kidz Therapy (AKT) launched a letter writing campaign (Template letter to write the Governor) approximately two weeks ago to do our part to personally write letters to our Florida Governor in addition to encouraging the families we serve, our friends, and our business acquaintances to send letters as well.

AKT is not the only grass-root effort urging our local government to bring Telehealth coverage to the table from our commercial insurance companies.

• 900 Healthcare workers write an open letter to Governor Desantis urging action and of the the demands for action, they included telehealth coverage by insurance companies.... 

• " The letter asks DeSantis to mandate that insurance providers waive cost-sharing for COVID-19 related medical procedures or treatment, as governors in New York and California have done, and to issue an executive order requiring insurance companies to cover telehealth services." Evans, Jack - March 27, 2020 - Tampa Bay Times

• https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/03/27/850-florida-healthcare-workers-urge-gov-ron-desantis-act-now

• Florida Doctors Urge State Officials to Mandate Telehealth Payment Parity.

• "Florida’s largest medical association is taking the state to task for not mandating telehealth payment parity during the Coronavirus pandemic.
  In a letter to State Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier, Florida Medical Association President Ronald Giffler, MD, urged the state to require all payers in the state to reimburse providers for telehealth services at the same rate they pay for in-person services." Wicklund, Eric - March, 26 2020 mHealth Intelligence 

• https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/florida-doctors-urge-state-officials-to-mandate-telehealth-payment-parity

While this is amazing news, the fight is not over and we urge you to keep writing our governor and state officials to mandate Telehealth parity laws in Florida (treating Telehealth just the same as an in-person visit for coverage and payment). Approx 39 states today have parity laws in place, but even in that scenario not all cover PT,OT,ST services.

Thank you for your continued support and let's show the powerful insurance lobby that our voices can outweigh their efforts to create additional blockers to services our Florida families need.

by: Gino Pici, COO
Amazing Kidz Therapy

Games to Build Fine Motor Skills and Strength

Games to Build Fine Motor Skills and Strength

By Kathleen Pici, OTR/L, CAS

During this time, when we are faced with more time at home with our children, less or/no interaction with their teachers/therapists/friends...(fill in the blank) it allows for us to work on skills with them that they may be struggling with. Now, one of the things that makes our jobs as therapists so great, is that therapy is (or should be!) fun! One of the greatest ways to do this is thru play. And, what better way to have fun and play together as a family than a game!

We want to provide you with some of our favorite games to work on fine motor skills and strengthening. Most of these games will also incorporate other skills such as color identification, number recognition, counting, or letter recognition. 

The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel works on fine motor coordination, strength, visual motor, and color matching. 

Frida's Fruit Fiesta Game works on fine motor coordination, strength, visual motor, and letter recognition. 

Sophie's Seashell Scramble works on fine motor coordination, strength, visual motor, and shape identification.

Flipping Frogs works on fine motor strength, dexterity, and finger isolation. 

Operation works on fine motor coordination, strengthening, visual motor skills, and dexterity. 

Trouble works on fine motor skills, visual motor, fine motor strengthening, and counting. 

Froggy Feeding Fun works on fine motor coordination, fine motor strengthening, color identification, and counting.