Little Buds Occupational Therapy
is a Mobile Paediatric Practice
servicing areas of South East Melbourne.
Email: enquiries@littlebudstherapy.com Phone: 0493 595 548
Initial Assessment/Meeting
An initial assessment is our way to meet you and your child, and to gather as much information about your child as possible. We assess their strengths and weaknesses through observation, play, and completion of specific tasks. Depending on the child's age and where they are developmentally, the assessment may be play-based or focus on specific activities. Children do best when they feel safe and comfortable, therefore we like to get to know each other by building rapport, using their interests, playing and interacting with each other to bring out their true self.
We like to break up our Initial Assessments into 3 stages.
Parent Chat
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A discussion with you to find out your story, your concerns, and your feelings. This can be done over the phone, via zoom, or in person. Ideally, the child is not present during this part, it's best if they don't hear us talking about their weaknesses.
1
Time to Meet
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A meeting with your child in person (ideally with you present) to start getting to know each other, assess their skills, find out their strengths and weaknesses, their passions, their
dislikes, and their worries. Depending on your child, we may use free play, specific activities, or standardised assessments.
2
Summary Report
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We will score up any standardised parts of the assessment and provide you with a summary report of our findings, with clear goals and recommendations.
3
We understand that sometimes life is hectic and while we aim for 3 stages of the Initial Assessment, we are flexible and can combine stages 1 & 2. Also, while the Initial Assessment ideally takes place at home (often the safest and most comfortable place), we can improvise and if it's OK with your kinder or school, we are happy for it to take place there (with or without you present), or you can bring your child to our office space in Beaconsfield, Victoria. We want this to be a positive experience and as stress-free as possible for everyone.
Standardised Assessments
We can complete standardised assessments to further investigate your child's challenges.
Some of the assessments we use focus on:
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Sensory Difficulties
Fine Motor & Gross Motor Skills
Visual Motor Integration
Functional Capacity (Activities of Daily Living, etc)
Handwriting
Classroom Observations
If your child is at childcare, kinder or school, this is our opportunity to see them in their educational setting and observe them in this vibrant, noisy environment, see how they interact with others, follow instructions, and self-regulate. We collaborate with their teachers, provide them with ideas and strategies, and then sometimes spend sessions within the classroom consolidating skills we have been working on.
