Children Aged 7 to 18 Years
Our team works in partnership with you and your child (aged 7 to 18 years), to support their development and assist with all aspects of attending school.
Goal setting
Our dedicated team will meet with you to discuss your goals for your child and what you would like them to be able to achieve, as well as what support you would like. Older children and adolescents are supported to join in with goal setting activities. Together, we will then plan how to help your child and family to achieve these goals.
Our School Aged Disability Services
We can help you and your child in a number of ways including:
- Everyday routines and activities – developing independence with toileting, bathing, dressing, sleeping, brushing teeth and hair.
- Communication – to enable your child to understand others, talk clearly, and communicate their wants, needs, thoughts feelings and ideas.
- Mobility and movement – for example walking, using hands for play, etc.
- Successful mealtimes – Eating and drinking safely -We offer a range of mealtime support feeding programs from individualised meals time strategies up to Specialised Feeding Therapy service.
- Fine motor skills – using hands and fingers for everyday tasks like drawing, handwriting, cutting, using a spoon and play.
- Thinking and learning skills – playing, paying attention, exploring, remembering, understanding and problem solving.
- Social and emotional skills – relating to others in a positive way, managing emotions, and learning independence and building skills for shared play with others.
- Participation – encouraging and enabling your child to participate in community and group activities.
- Using technology.
- Accessing the school curriculum.
- Safe use of equipment – enabling your child to use their equipment safely and helping others who support them to use it safely.
- Reducing challenging behaviours, including support from our Positive Behaviour Support Team.
What do our disability services for school children look like?
- We can visit you at your home, school, out in the community or a place of recreation.
- We can visit you at times that work for you and/or others who support you.
- We can work with teachers and other professionals involved in your child’s life.
- We can support you to use strategies to help your child’s learning within everyday tasks.
- We can set up programs for you or someone else to accomplish with your child.
- We facilitate a range of disability support groups.
How do I access disability services for my child?
Access to our School-Aged Disability Services can be through:
- The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding
- Paying a fee for the service
- Medicare rebate for Allied Health Services through referral from your GP
- Better Start funding (Until full roll out of NDIS)
- Helping Children with Autism (Until full roll out of NDIS)
Meet your team
Depending on the needs of your child, your dedicated multidisciplinary team will be made up of a range of allied health professionals such as:
- Occupational Therapists
- Physiotherapists
- Speech Pathologists
- Social Workers
- Deafblind Consultants
- Orientation & Mobility Specialists
- Orthoptists
- Dietitians
- Positive Behaviour Support Practitioners
Specific skills
In addition to extensive knowledge and experience of supporting the development of children and adolescents with disability, some specific skills we have within our team include:
- Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) Approach to Feeding – a program for children with feeding difficulties, based on the ‘normal’ developmental steps, stages and skills of feeding.
- Individualised programs to support your child or adolescent with healthy eating.
- Prescription of specialised equipment – customised equipment to meet the needs of your child and your family.
- Services for complex communication needs. Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) – this includes high tech such as speech generating devices and low tech such as Key Word Signing and communication books.
- Key word signing – individual support and workshops
- Specialist Sensory Services for people with vision and / or hearing impairment or loss
- Positive Behaviour Support
- Autism Services
