Happy Feet Dance Camp

Happy Feet has been crafted by and is directed by licensed Occupational and Speech Therapists.  The camp’s focus is to facilitate peer interaction and improve social-pragmatic skills through the use of fun and motivating movement activities. Our goal is to promote coordination, strength, and endurance via gross-motor activities, and provide sensory stimulation via auditory, vestibular, proprioceptive, and visual experiences.

Happy Turtle Yoga

Happy Turtle Yoga is a program led by Coastal therapists certified in child yoga! The classes will be first and foremost a yoga class, tailored specifically to meet the needs of your child. Primary targets of the class will be to help improve self-soothing and relaxation skills, breathing and visualization strategies, flexibility, strength, motor planning, and body awareness. The group atmosphere will organically provide socialization opportunities for our special yogis!

The Hungry Group

The Hungry Group is a multi-sensory feeding group that runs once weekly for six week sessions.    The group has been crafted by and is facilitated by licensed Occupational and Speech Therapists. The general purpose of the group is to decrease tactile and oral defensiveness, provide exploration of different tastes and textures, reduce stress around mealtime, and ultimately help expand a child’s repertoire of foods. We also help encourage social pragmatic skills around mealtime while promoting oral motor coordination, strength, and sensory stimulation. The group includes family education with creative tips on how to consider sensory needs in menu planning, implement food chaining and how to use strategies to slowly incorporate change.

Each group is specifically tailored to meet the needs of the children involved. We consider each child’s strengths and challenges to facilitate the group process and encourage peer engagement.

LiteGait Weight Assisted Treadmill Training

Our pediatric LiteGait system is a partial weight bearing therapy device which can control weight bearing, posture, and balance over a treadmill or over the ground.  The device allows the therapist to provide hands-on facilitation to improve mechanics and muscle activation during interventions in a safe, secure, and comfortable environment.

Patients are able to use the harness and suspension system in a variety of therapeutic ways:

• Address strength, balance, coordination, and postural impairments in sitting, standing, and during gait.
• Comfortably walk in a fall-free environment over a treadmill or on land.
• Increase or decrease the amount of weight bearing, independently on each side of the body.
• Achieve improved upright posture with a fully adjustable support system.
• Utilize the lift system to provide a variety of therapy options to the non-ambulatory patient.

Who can benefit from this therapy option?  This system can effectively provide treatment options across a broad spectrum of severity levels from non-ambulatory to independently ambulatory.  Current research also supports the use of treadmill training in children with cerebral palsy and Down syndrome.

Social InterACTions

Does your child have trouble establishing and maintaining friendships? Is it difficult for them to understand the “rules” that guide behavior in social situations? Coastal Therapy Services, Inc. is excited to offer Social InterACTions, a unique social skills group that aims to provide a comprehensive approach highlighting the relationship between sensory processing and regulation as well as a child’s ability to understand and respond appropriately in social situations. This group has been specifically designed to give your child the tools and strategies they need to adapt readily in various social environments based upon theories from Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking and Leah M. Kuypers’ The Zones of Regulation.

Social InterACTions consists of hand selected small groups that will meet over 16 sessions. Sessions are based in the clinic as well as in the community and will offer each group the opportunity to practice these acquired social skills. Clinic sessions are typically 90 minutes and our community based sessions are two hours in length. The community locations will be determined by the therapists to best meet the needs of the children in each group.

The group pairings are determined by consideration of each child’s body regulation level, cognitive abilities, and current social skill level. Our goal is to expand your child’s ability to assess their own body awareness level and learn strategies to better regulate their own body in an expected manner. Your child will also develop and refine how to use expected verbal and non-verbal social behaviors when interacting with peers and adults. We will work diligently to meet each group of students at their individual level and are confident your child will leave with improved awareness and tools needed to navigate socially, allowing for the development of lasting friendships and positive connections.

Constraint Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT)

Constraint-induced movement therapy, or CIMT, is a form of intensive therapy for children with hemiparesis, or paralysis of one side of the body. This may include children with Cerebral Palsy, Brachial plexus birth injuries, a traumatic brain disorder, or any form of injury affecting one arm. Therapists at Coastal are extensively trained to evaluate and create individualized intervention plans to promote improved quality and use of a child’s affected limb. The child’s functional arm is placed in a constraint for a short duration, where therapy is then provided at a higher intensity according to evidence based research, and family is trained in specific strategies to encourage active movement of their arm.  

Coastal Therapy also provides custom made casting and splinting orthotics, or may use a variety of puppets/restrictions to constrain the child’s arm in a safe and fun way that works best for your family. If a cast is selected by your team, it is closely monitored by a therapist with CIMT specific casting training.  

Research has shown strong, positive results starting as early as 6 months of age for improved arm and hand use. If you have questions about implementing one of the variety of options that Coastal Therapy provides for a pediatric CIMT protocol, please contact our office and look for CIMT camps for older children in the future!