Friendly Neurons

21/10/2025

Potion making! Finding more interest-based ways to incorporate cognitive and fine motor skill development into a child’s everyday routine. 🎃

06/09/2025

A client taught me how to make pizza in my mini airfryer the other day after writing me a shopping list and instructions. It was amazing!!! I have the best job in the world. 🥰

27/08/2025

Making learning maths accessible! Playing Sleeping Queens (area of interest) while supporting autonomy (counters and maths scale to check answers before playing cards).
Pity these strategies resulted our OT losing far too many games though…. 🥴😂

23/08/2025

3D printing success! Now this cool kid can turn on a tap without having to ask for help. Even printed it in their favourite colour. ;-)

19/08/2025

A dancing robot has been built! I wonder if I can now program it to dance to KPop… 🤣😎

15/08/2025

This aligns so well with what clients have found useful, what a great summary and resource!

11/08/2025

Exciting times ahead!! Our Lego robotics kit has arrived!! 🤩🥳

22/07/2025

Making a bed can be super tricky, but this bed lifter can make things easier! Particularly useful for people who may have reduced muscle tone, motor planning challenges, arthritis, or simply want to do life easier. 🥳

14/07/2025

When you go camping, it is important you pack light and only take essential items. Things like a loyal pooch and an executive functioning aide. 🤣

01/07/2025

Something to keep in mind if visiting the hospital! 🤩

Big news for our littlest patients! The Smiley Scope is now officially part of North Canberra Hospital’s emergency department and it’s already making a big difference.

We caught up with Mattie, one of our incredible ED nurses, who says the addition of the Smiley Scopes is a welcome step forward:

‘In a potentially chaotic and stressful environment, this can be a calm in all the chaos… It’s a good move not only for our little patients but for their families as well.’

The Smiley Scope is a virtual reality headset that takes kids on calming adventures think swimming with dolphins, floating through space or playing with puppies while we take care of the serious stuff like cannulas or broken bones.

Mattie sees it as more than just a distraction:
💬 ‘It helps de-stress the moment, not just for the child but for parents too. It gives them relief. It makes care feel a little more involved in their care.’

If you're a parent feeling nervous about coming into ED with your child, Mattie gets it and has this message for you:

‘We’re doing our best to provide a safe, supportive environment. This is one way we bring comfort, even in the hardest moments.’

This step forward was made possible thanks to the Canberra Hospital Foundation and we’re so grateful.

From injections to broken arms, the Smiley Scope is helping us care better, comfort more, and create hospital memories that don’t feel so scary.

🫶 Have you or your child had a calming moment thanks to a Smiley Scope or one of our ED team? We’d love to hear your story in the comments below or tag someone who’d love to know how it’s helping.

23/06/2025

This works for so many of our PDA kiddos, and I love the use of the Post-it note. Supports don’t have to be fancy, Post-it notes work well for so many things! 🥳

Sharing this in case it helps anyone.

A note I left for my birthday kiddo.

Not all of us feel excited for our birthday.
It can be a really stressful day, heavy with expectations to be the right amount of excited, grateful, whatever. It can just feel too hard and worrying. And what's the point of that?

I wrote this note to my kid in case opening gifts in front of people was one of the stressful things.

We also decided things impulsively throughout the day rather than making big solid plans in advance. Just checked in with them in the moment- hey do you feel like donuts or pavlova?

We stayed home. Played games.
Familiar, comforting things.
With pavlova.

If new things are stressful and upsetting- keep them as same as you can on birthdays. And find small opportunities to add in special moments and details (if they want them).

Em 🌈

17/06/2025

What is unmasking? This post echos many of our fantastic clients experiences. 💛