8:00am - 5:00pm
Monday - Friday
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Occupational Therapy
Play Partners occupational therapists work with families to assist children and young adults with disability to learn functional skills. These include but are not limited to; age-appropriate play skills as well as fine motor skills such as writing and cutting with scissors; the ability to pay attention and concentrate on task; self-care skills, such as feeding, brushing teeth, dressing, toileting, and bathing; life skills, such as shopping, cooking, managing money; any challenge that impacts on a persons ability to participate in their day to day occupations. Occupational Therapists can also address sensory issues that impact on a person’s ability to learn functional skills.
Speech Pathology
Play Partners speech pathologists work with families to assist children and young adults with disability to communicate. Speech pathologists assess a person's ability to understand language and their ability to express themselves effectively so that they can be understood by others. Communication can include the spoken word, sign, gesture as well as Assisted Augmentative Communication (AAC) like Proloquo2go, PODD or eye gaze devices. Speech Pathologists are specialists in the anatomy and physiology of the mouth, neck and upper airways and so provide assessment and treatment for speech articulation difficulties, voice production and swallowing concerns.
Physiotherapy
Play Partners physiotherapists work with families to assist children and young adults with disability to develop big movement skills. These include but are not limited to crawling, walking, running, jumping, climbing, and balancing. Physiotherapists are movement specialists and address the issues that contribute to difficulties learning gross motor skill. Common areas addressed include muscle tone, muscle weakness, muscle imbalance, motor planning and coordination difficulties. Physiotherapists also consider posture, muscle strength and endurance and how these may be impacting on a person's ability to participate in their day to day activities. There is evidence that improved gross motor skill has a positive impact on executive functioning for person’s with autism spectrum disorder.
Transdisciplinary Approach to Early Intervention
Play Partners supports a transdisciplinary approach to allied health intervention. A trans-disciplinary approach requires the team members share roles and systematically cross discipline boundaries. The primary purpose of this approach is to pool and integrate the expertise of team members so that more efficient and comprehensive assessment and intervention services may be provided.
The Allied Health Team teach, learn, and work together to accomplish a common set of intervention goals for a child and family. The role differentiation between disciplines is defined by the needs of the situation rather than by discipline-specific characteristics.
Assessment, intervention, and evaluation are carried out jointly by designated members of the team. This teamwork usually results in a decrease in the number of professionals who interact with the child on a regular basis.
Program for the Enhancement and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS)
Social Detectives Advanced
Play Partners is a PEERS Certified Provider.
PEERS for Teens and Young Adults is a 14-week evidence-based social skills intervention for motivated teens in middle and high school as well as young adults who are interested in learning new ways of making and keeping friends. This internationally acclaimed program, used in over 35 countries, was originally developed at UCLA by Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson. During each group session, teens are taught important social skills and are given the opportunity to practice these skills in session during socialization activities. Parents attend separate sessions at the same time and are taught how to assist their teens learning these new skills. . PEERS® may be appropriate for teens with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Anxiety, Depression or other social and behavioral disorders. The cost of the program currently is $1551.91 (NDIS group rate) which includes a pre and post group assessment.
Social Detectives Beginners
Our Social Detectives Beginners group runs for 8 weeks at Play Partners during one school term. Each session runs for 60 minutes. Social Detectives Beginners is based on Michelle Garcier Winner’s Social thinking program. Group sessions incorporate the social cognition curriculum developed by Michelle Garcier Winner's Social Thinking program with real time practise of this learning in a small group of 3 or 4. We have made some adaptations to her teachings to incorporate our trauma informed practice framework. The cost of the program currently is $711.30 (NDIS group rate) which includes a written report at the end of the program. Parents are encouraged to attend and are provided with handouts that explain the content. It is really helpful if the language introduced during the sessions is also used at home.
Our Social Detectives Advanced group runs for 16 weeks at Play Partners. It runs for two blocks of 8 weeks over two school terms. Each session runs for 90 minutes. Social Detectives Advanced is based on Michelle Garcier Winner’s Social thinking program. Group sessions incorporate the social cognition curriculum developed by Michelle Garcier Winner's Social Thinking program with real time practise of this learning in a small group of 6. We have made some adaptations to her teachings to incorporate our trauma informed practice framework. The cost of the program currently is $1745.99 (NDIS group rate) which includes a written report at the end of the program. Parents are welcome to attend and parents are provided with handouts that explain the content. It is really helpful if the language introduced during the sessions is also used at home.
