The SMILE Center

11/28/2024

Happy Thanksgiving! 🍁

We’re especially thankful for all SMILE parents. Wishing you moments of joy, laughter, and togetherness with your little ones. You deserve all the gratitude for the amazing work you do every day. 🦃❤️

06/15/2024

Celebrating all the amazing dads out there. Thank you for your love, wisdom, and unwavering support. Your impact is immeasurable, and we are grateful for everything you do.

Wishing all fathers a day filled with joy, relaxation, and love. You are truly appreciated!

06/07/2024

September 13 - 14 (Friday & Saturday) 2024 🍎 Manhattan 🍎 NY

We are so excited to share that Lois Bly will be returning in person courses with SMILE in September! We hope you can join us!

REGISTER ONLINE: https://bit.ly/3V9h7B1
PRINTABLE REGISTRATION: https://bit.ly/LBNDT24

This two day in-person course is designed for experienced physical and occupational therapists currently working with babies. Lecture information will focus on NDT Infant Treatment Principles. Labs and videotapes will be used to problem solve system impairments for infants in general and for the specific infants who will be treated in demonstration sessions. Labs with dolls will augment the therapist's understanding of infant treatment techniques. Participants should wear comfortable clothes for labs.

11/23/2023

Wishing you a warm Thanksgiving celebration with your family! We are so grateful for all of our SMILE kids, past and present, and the opportunity to work with such amazing families. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your circle.
All our love,
SMILE

11/01/2023

Happy Halloween!!! Love, your friends at SMILE 🎃👻

08/11/2023

Sensory integration is one of the main focuses at The SMILE Center where we help our kiddos organize sensory information from both their body and the environment and use this information to adapt and complete tasks across environments. The auditory system is a critical link in sensory integration, connecting our body to the environment through the sounds we hear. Hearing is passive, happening mindlessly throughout our day, however, listening is an active process that requires active attention and encompasses the whole brain and body. Listening is a continuous process involving engagement (what is that sound?), interaction (what does that sound mean to me?), and discrimination (should I listen more closely or move away from that sound?).

Many of our SMILE OTs are trained in Therapeutic Listening (TL). This program involves listening to specially recorded and enhanced music, on headphones, in OT sessions, and in a home program, created between the family and the child’s therapist. Some of the skills which can be influenced by a therapeutic listening program include attention, regulation, postural control, bilateral integration, spatial processing, and more. We have a full blog post on the website today to share more information about Therapeutic Listening - follow the link to learn more, and contact your child's OT if you think that TL may be beneficial for them!

Contributed by SMILE Senior OT, Jayme Petronchak. Thanks Jayme!

08/04/2023

Hopscotch is one of our favorite activities that we use across disciplines at SMILE! Hopscotch helps to build strength, balance, bilateral coordination, and number recognition skills. It is also an activity that is easy to replicate at home – on the sidewalk with chalk or on a tile or playmat floor indoors with tape. We also love to use hopscotch as an activity that can grow with your child as they build their gross motor skills. Here is the progression from easiest to most challenging way to play:

-Start with jumping forward with two feet, using “jump apart” and “jump together”

-Progress to jumping diagonal and sideways with two feet to each number

-Next is the “classic” hopscotch, alternating between jumping on one foot and two feet

-The hardest progression is adding a beanbag toss to skip one of the numbers when you are jumping!

Have any questions about how to work on hopscotch at home, or new ideas to share? Leave them below in the comments!

08/02/2023

Trying to find ways to beat the heat? Ice cream in a bag is a great activity that the whole family will enjoy! It is also a great way to target so many speech and language skills! This week at SMILE our kiddos beat the heat by making ice cream in a bag! We worked on sequencing skills by following a colorful step by step visual on what ingredients to mix together and place in the zip lock bags! We targeted turn taking by making the ice cream in small groups. The kiddos learned all about different vocabulary words through real time experiences such as “cold” ice, “sweet” vanilla, “crunchy” sprinkles! We are not sure who had more fun, the kiddos or the therapists 😁🍨

07/21/2023

Vertical Surface Play!!

Moving kids’ play up from the floor to upright, in a vertical position, has a TON of benefits. Make it even more fun for kids by using household surfaces, not typically used for play, such as the refrigerator, walls of the bathtub, and windows as the stage for play. By modifying the play environment with this one change you are also changing the muscles that are activated in the body. When children work on a vertical surface they increase wrist extension, elbow and shoulder stability, and improve upright posture. While playing upright, they are using more of their core muscles and also targeting weight shifting, bilateral integration, midline crossing, visual skills, and spatial awareness. Here are several play ideas on a vertical surface to try at home. Try the activities in different positions like standing, kneeling or sitting on a therapy ball for an added challenge.

Shaving cream play in the bathtub
Building with magnetic tiles on the refrigerator
Painting on an easel
Suction toys play on the windows
Tape a coloring sheet to a wall for your little artists
Washing a car outside
Using chalk on an outdoor wall
Using removable stickers or dry erase markers on windows and mirrors

Have any other ideas for vertical play? Share them in the comments below!

07/14/2023

One of our favorite pieces of equipment to use in physical therapy at SMILE is our indoor playground!! This large therapy tool has a ladder on one side, rock wall on the other side, and a large playground slide down the middle. For toddlers and school aged children, physical therapy can help to work on some of the key gross motor skills that help children play independently and safely on playground equipment at parks and schools. One of the areas of development that play key parts in playground navigation include functional strength in a child’s arms, trunk, and legs which allow them to push and pull themselves up ladders and rock walls and keep themselves upright while sliding down slides. Another component is bilateral coordination, which is a child’s ability to utilize the right and left sides of their body differently at the same time, such as shifting their weight onto their right leg while lifting their left leg to the next rock on the rock wall. SMILE’s playground set also allows our physical therapists the opportunity to work on body and safety awareness with each child, to help them be as safe and independent as possible while on raised surfaces during gross motor play outside of therapy. If your child could use help building their playground gross motor skills, talk to one of their therapists to see if a PT evaluation would be beneficial.

06/30/2023

To celebrate Better hearing and speech month and the start of spring, The SMILE Center grew butterflies! First, we transferred the caterpillars into little habitats to grow into cocoons and named them. Our kiddos came up with such creative and fun names. We then transferred them into a shared netted space where they continued to grow. We checked on them every day to see if they came out of their cocoons. Once the Butterflies came out of their cocoons, we fed them oranges and watermelons as a sweet treat! Last, we set them free at the park near our center. All of the kiddos cheered them on as they flew into the sky! What a special whole center project we were all about to be a part of! We can’t wait to watch them grow again next year!

06/23/2023

At SMILE, we love 🦸‍♀️🦸🦸‍♂️SUPER SUITS🦸‍♂️🦸🦸‍♀️!!!! A “SPIO,” or, Stabilizing Pressure Input Orthosis, provides continuous deep pressure input to children while wearing the garment. Wearing a “SPIO” offers a ton of benefits including increased organization, connection to the environment, improved posture and improved self-regulation skills. It provides stretch and tension towards the body’s midline to provide sensory information to the child’s proprioceptive system increasing awareness of body position, movement of limbs and increase postural muscle activation.

We’ll often have kids wearing them through their sessions at The SMILE Center but many families work with nearby clinics in order to get their child a personal SPIO Suit to wear across environments. “SPIO suits” help children maintain attention longer, improve body and spatial awareness for increased safety in the community and improve alignment and muscle activation to increase tone and postural limitations. We encourage wearing them daily through all structured activities and routines outside of their therapy sessions. Talk to your child’s therapist to learn more!!