Occupational Therapy with Kim

Occupational therapy evaluation, treatment, and consultation is available on a limited basis and can be combined with individually-tailored private yoga instruction. Treatment sessions are typically one hour in duration; evaluations are on average two and half hours long; consultation times vary. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please contact me.

What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational therapy (OT) is an evidence-based holistic scientific health profession that works with individuals of all ages and levels of ability to help them do the things they want and need to do in life. In fact, many people are completely unaware that OT exists until they or a family member becomes sick or injured! However, individuals do not need to be disabled before taking advantage of what OT has to offer. Many people choose to work with an OT to enhance their wellness and overall quality of life. OT's practice in many diverse settings that may include hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, skilled nursing facilities, schools, community centers, and pediatric outpatient clinics. They can work independently or with other professionals including doctors, teachers, psychologists, counselors and case managers, physical therapists, and speech and language pathologists.

OT's are required to complete a master's or doctoral degree of education, participate in fieldwork on a variety of clinical and community sites, and pass a national standardized board exam. Licensure is then granted and regulated by the individual states. An OT's educational process focuses on all aspects and levels of human development with an emphasis on enhancing task performance of meaningful daily occupations within the social, physical, and other contextual environments.

OTs help individuals improve or adapt their function in areas such as self care, home management, education and school, play, leisure, and work. It is NOT necessarily about helping individuals find a job! Although OT's sometimes do this with clients, it is not what the profession focuses upon.

For a more in-depth description of occupational therapy and how OTs enhance the lives of children, adults, and the elderly, visit the American Occupational Therapy Association's consumer page.

[View fact sheets about how OTs can help individuals in wide range of situations.

What is Sensory Integration/Sensory Processing?

Sensory integration/sensory processing is the body's ability to take in, organize, and process all the various sensations from the environment so that the individual can respond to the world in a meaningful way. This involves seven senses, including the five traditional senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch, along with two others, proprioceptive (positioning and movement of our joints and muscles) and vestibular (sense of gravity, head movement, and balance).

Sensory integration/sensory processing is a complex neurological process that all children and adults experience on a continual basis throughout the lifespan. Some individuals have excellent sensory integration and processing, some have problems in only a few areas, and some others have much broader difficulties that cover a wide range of activities and occupations. Sensory integration/sensory processing is therefore a continuum and each individual person processes sensation in his/her own unique way. However, if an individual has a hard time processing some or all of the sensations that come into the body, there is a very good chance that performance in daily tasks and activities will be negatively impacted or limited. It can be said that these individuals have a form of sensory integration dysfunction or disorder.

Individuals with sensory integrative dysfunction/sensory processing disorder can be over-responsive, under-responsive, or have a combination of both responses to sensory information entering the body from the outside environment, depending upon the sense or senses affected. Oftentimes the root cause of sensory integrative dysfunction/sensory processing disorder is unknown; sometimes the dysfunction results from a traumatic neurological accident or event.

What is Occupational Therapy Using a Sensory Integrative Approach?

Occupational therapy using a sensory integrative approach is traditionally a specialized area of occupational therapy practice based on the pioneering work and theory of A. Jean Ayres, PhD (1920-1988), an OT with advanced training in neuroscience and educational psychology. Approaches and theories used to guide treatment of sensory integration dysfunction continue to broaden and evolve from Ayres' original tenets and research conducted from the late 1960s onward. The evidence behind these ever-expansive treatment approaches available to the general consumer varies widely in name, efficacy, cost, and level of controversy. It should be noted that many, but not all, of these various treatment approaches call them a form of "sensory integration" treatment but have little relationship to Ayres' original theoretical tenets.