Pediatric Rehabilitation
The Pediatric Rehabilitation team at Wood County Hospital provides a comprehensive, integrated approach to caring for children from birth through adolescence. Our multidisciplinary staff includes physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists. They evaluate and treat children with any condition that impacts speech, language, sensory, or motor development.
Physical Therapy
Pediatric physical therapy promotes independence, increases participation, facilitates motor development and function, improves strength and endurance, and enhances learning opportunities. Therapists are skilled in helping children learn to use adaptive equipment such as gait trainers, standers or wheelchairs.
Specialized Services for Physical Therapy
Aquatic Therapy
Aquatic therapy gives children a fun and soothing way to work on therapy goals. Therapists use the properties of warm water to affect motor learning, sensory processing and modulation.
Orthotic Treatment
Therapists are trained to assess and fit children with appropriate orthotics to correct orthopedic alignment.
Serial Casting
Serial Casting involves the use of casts to restore or improve range of motion, reduce muscle contracture and improve movement and alignment of joints in the arms and legs.
Sports Medicine
Our Athletic Trainers provide a full range of sports medicine services to athletes in the Wood County area.
Occupational Therapy
Pediatric occupational therapy focuses on helping children gain skills, improve deficits, and be as independent as possible in everyday activities. Areas of focus include learning self-care tasks such as dressing and eating, improving play skills to interact with peers and siblings, improving fine motor and visual skills to complete various tasks such as writing and cutting, and improving sensory processing skills so a child is able to receive and interpret information from the environment to promote attention and learning.
Specialized Services for OT
Autism
Therapists in all disciplines have extensive education and experience in working with children functioning at all levels under the autism umbrella. A team approach is used between all disciplines to facilitate maximum progress and carry over between environments.
The Ready Program/Preschool Program for Children with Autism
Sensory Processing Disorders
The world is an abundance of sensory information, and some children have difficulty processing all of this information. Our therapists are well-versed in all sensory processing areas and can address these issues in children of all ages. Sensory activities will be tailored to each child’s specific needs to improve their ability to complete everyday activities and engage socially.
Feeding
OT focused on the motor skills required for eating and drinking as well as the sensory component for children who have oral versions and are picky eaters.
Speech Therapy
Speech therapists work to help children become more effective verbal and/or nonverbal communicators. Areas include improving receptive and expressive language skills, articulation/phonology, social and pragmatic skills, problem-solving, executive functioning, memory, voice, phonological processing, reading comprehension, written communication, and fluency skills.
Specialized Services for Speech Therapy
Oral Motor and Feeding
Some children have difficulties with chewing and swallowing, some are picky eaters, and others have oral aversions, drooling, or motor planning disorders that affect their ability to eat. Our therapists have expertise in oral motor and feeding techniques to make mealtime more enjoyable for the whole family.
Oral Placement Therapy
Oral Placement Therapy targets the movements necessary for standard speech production through a combination of therapy techniques. This therapy differs from traditional speech therapy in that the strategies continue to utilize auditory and visual stimuli while adding the tactile and proprioceptive sensory systems. This allows patients to feel the movements as well as hear and see them.
Autism
Therapists in all disciplines have extensive education and experience in working with children functioning at all levels under the autism umbrella. A team approach is used between all disciplines to facilitate maximum progress and carry over between environments.
The Ready Program/Preschool Program for Children with Autism
Natural Language Acquisition for Gestalt Language Processors
Speech therapists have an understanding that not all children acquire language starting with 1 word and then building into 2 words and eventually phrases and sentences. Our speech-language pathologists are trained in assessing children who present as gestalt language processors. This means young children first learn long chunks of language that are often based on intonation. These chunks have meaning to the child and are often first repeated from videos, books, movies, or people after a delay. Sometimes these scripts are understood, and other times are unintelligible. Children as gestalt language processors may also have several single words around preferred interests but haven’t progressed to combining those single words with others to build phrases.