Kidabilities Pediatric Therapy Center

10/28/2025

This Halloween, we’re making therapy spooky and fun! 👻👻
Ghost crafts are a great way to work on fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and creativity. Try this simple craft with your kids to boost their skills and self esteem! 👻🕷️🎃

10/27/2025

10/07/2025

Our students are apple-solutely building their skills in OT!! 🍎🍏

This week has been filled with strategies and interventions to increase bilateral integration skills, dexterity control, in hand manipulation skills, hand and wrist strengthening, scissor skills, pre-writing and letter recall! 🍎 These abilities are essential to our students everyday activities such as writing, dressing, eating and playing! 🍎🍏

09/10/2025

🏕️🏕️🏕️ Camping week in OT! 🏕️🏕️🏕️

🪵camping cryptogram: this activity will help to increase visual tracking abilities, spatial awareness, handwriting skills, and fine motor skills!
🌲Camping word puzzle: this activity is great for improving handwriting skills as it gives correct size boxes for tall letters, short letters, etc. It also increases letter memory, recall, fine motor skills, and visual motor skills!
🪵 Camping I-spy: this offers numerous benefits such as enhancing cognition, visual perception, visual scanning, and visual figure-ground awareness.
🌲 Camp Tracing: special focus on the letter “Tt” for tent! This offers many developmental benefits such as enhanced fine motor skills, improved hand-eye coordination, and increased pencil control!
🪵 Camping coloring sheet: coloring can improve concentration and focus, help to develop fine motor coordination, bilateral integration and visual motor skills! Coloring also allows for increased self confidence in children.

06/24/2025

‼️Now Hiring‼️

We are seeking a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist for a contract position.

2-3 days per week. Flexible hours, competitive pay, and a supportive interdisciplinary team.

Call 605-545-6231 for more information

04/03/2025

🎉 Happy Occupational Therapy Month! 🎉

WHAT is pediatric OT, anyway??

Children have jobs just like adults! Pediatric OT helps infants and children reach their maximal potential to live life to the fullest!

A child’s occupation is made up of a variety of everyday activities, such as playing, learning, getting dressed, writing their name, brushing their teeth, walking, crawling, and feeding themselves! Occupational therapy helps children be as independent as possible.
Below are just a few of the areas pediatric occupational therapy can benefit children:

— coordination — for a child it is important for all areas of life including: self feeding, handwriting, riding a bike, and several other activities! There are different types of coordination such as fine motor coordination (small movements of the hand), gross motor coordination (larger body movements) and motor planning (how the brain and body work together to coordinate movements).

— visual motor integration — involves the coordination of the child’s body movements and visual skills. Examples would include cutting, tying shoes, putting on a jacket, and catching a ball.

— strength — is an important component for children to successfully accomplish everyday tasks. Some children with decreased strength will fatigue quickly when performing a simple handwriting task because their hand strength is below age level.

— sensory processing— involves how a person perceives information from their senses, such as, sight, taste, and sound. An example would be a child who dislikes wearing certain clothing because if the way they feel on their body.

— self care — is the ability to take care of one’s self. (Dressing, bathing, zip up zippers, or button buttons).

— social skills — are important for children to learn in order to relate and communicate with their peers, parents and teachers.

— cognition — relates to how the brain thinks, processes, and learns. Some specific areas of cognition include attention, sequencing activities, time management, memory, problem solving, following directions and decision making.

04/02/2025

Understand💙Accept💜Love❤️Support💛

03/20/2025

Recognizing motor development in children is so important for their overall growth and well-being! Monitoring milestones helps identify any delays early, ensuring timely intervention and support. The chart provided outlines key motor development stages! 🤗❤️

By regularly checking this chart, you can track your child's progress and spot any areas of concern. Early recognition and referral to occupational and speech therapy can make a significant difference in helping children achieve their full potential.

02/12/2025

Immediate Openings for Autism Testing & Evaluation in Pikeville!

The Autism Center of Kentucky in Pikeville is now accepting new patients for testing and evaluation—with immediate openings available! If you or someone you love needs an autism assessment and have been told the wait time will be weeks or months, now is the perfect time to schedule an appointment.

Early diagnosis and proper evaluation can make a world of difference in accessing the right support and services. The Autism Center of Kentucky is committed to providing comprehensive, compassionate, and professional care for both children and adults.

📍 Location: 126 Trivette Drive – Pikeville, KY
📞 Contact: Call 606-432-6957 today to schedule an appointment!

Help spread the word to families who could benefit from this vital service. Early intervention and understanding can change lives!

02/03/2025

Looking for a fun, festive way to practice both Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy this Valentines? Try the Heart Snack! ❤️😋
First: review the recipe and materials needed.
Work on attributes and nouns:
* Wet bologna, dry pretzels.
* Sticky cheese
* Tiny pieces
* Salty pretzel
* Sharp cooks cutter
Second: make the heart snack.
Through this you are working on fine motor skills and textures.
Verbs to target with this activity:
* slice
* Cut
* Put on
* Place
* Push down
* Stack
You can easily reinforce spatial concepts such as the following:
* on
* under
* behind
AND work on /s/ blends:
* pretzel stick
* sticky cheese
* slice
* small
* snack
* still (e.g. I still need a cookie cutter to cut the bologna)
Finally: address question reversals and requesting information and objects.
* Can I have
* Do you have
* Could I
* May I have
* Would you mind (if I ate your whole snack?)
* Can we just (make the snack and stop cuing me for speech targets?)-no.
Let us know if you try it! 🥰❤️

01/21/2025

Looking for ways to continue working on speech skills at home!?

There are so many fun activities you can do to improve speech skills! 🗣️

You can try playing word games like "I Spy" 👀or "20 Questions"❓to help with vocabulary and sentence structure.

Reading books together and discussing the story is also great. 📖📚

Singing songs and nursery rhymes can make learning new words fun. 🎤

Even simple activities like describing objects around the house or telling stories can be super helpful.🏡

Pediatric speech therapy can have a profound impact on a child's development. 👧
It not only helps children improve their communication skills but also boosts their confidence and social interactions. 👯‍♀️

Early intervention through speech therapy can significantly enhance a child's ability to express themselves, understand others, and succeed in both academic and social settings.

01/14/2025

❄️❄️Stuck at home on a snow day and missing your child’s therapy session? Or even just looking for some fun, effective activities to do at home? Here are a few activities to do at home along with the skills worked on to get you through the snowy weather! ☃️

1. Snowman planning (fine motor, visual motor): have your child make a picture of a snowman on paper or in shaving cream at the table. If working on handwriting, have your child make a list of the materials you will use for the snowman parts. Collect the materials and head outside to begin building! ⛄️

2. Snowman making (bilateral coordination, proprioception, strength, motor planning): roll the snow into large, medium and small balls. Lift the heavy balls to stack them. Make the snowman look like the plan your child made! ☃️

3. Snowball fight (bilateral coordination, eye-hand coordination): use both hands or a two-handed scooper to form snowballs. Work on a step-throw pattern to throw them at each other. You and your child can also build a wall to hide behind for protection for more proprioceptive input and strength building! ❄️

4. Sledding (vestibular, balance, proprioception, strength): find a sledding hill near you so your child can experience this fun sensory input! Sledding can be done in sitting, prone (on tummy) and in kneeling. Hold on with both hands to ride down. Carrying the sled back up the hill provides a good dose of strength building, balance and proprioception. 🏂

5. Make Rice Krispie treats (bilateral coordination, proprioception, strength, fine motor, visual motor): have your child make a list of ingredients to work on handwriting. Work on pouring and stirring to blend the ingredients. Use a piece of wax paper to push the Krispie mixture into the pan. If appropriate, have your child practice cutting the squares using a knife. 🍫

6. Make hot cocoa with marshmallows (fine motor, visual motor): have your child practice writing the numbers 1-10 then choose how many marshmallows he/she wants in their cup of cocoa. Use tongs to place the marshmallows in the cocoa. ☕️