Speech & Occupational Therapy Post COVID-19

Therapy centers like ours around the country are looking to safely reopen. We are not only refining safety precautions, but we are also thinking about our therapy goals for speech-language and occupational therapy.  We have concerns about the mental well-being of our clients and we are working to make A2 Therapy Works feel as normal as possible when children enter our therapy rooms
While we have been lucky to continue our regular goals for many of our clients via telehealth, we have concerns about the influence the last few months has had on them. 
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• ​Children need touch, play, and socialization with peers. COVID-19 precautions, while necessary, have removed that from our children’s development. Children haven’t gotten hugs from friends or teachers for months.
• ​Children haven’t thrown a football or kicked a soccer ball with a friend. 
• Children are adjusting to breathing with a mask over their faces.
• Children haven’t played tag on the playground or gotten pushed on the swings. 
• Children needed to adjust to sudden and unforeseen changes in their routines.
• Children were asked to quickly pivot to learning via a brand new delivery model and likely, greatly increased their screen time.
• Children had to adjust to spending more time with their parents, siblings, or other family members who live in their households. 
• Children have to learn about social distancing (as do adults), why it is important to abide by these rules, and what it looks like in a public setting (like the grocery store and in school)

The past few months have been difficult, with a lot of confusion and uncertainty in our communities. As therapists, we would like to assist our clients and their families with functional goals and tools to omit any unnecessary anxiety about returning to the clinic for therapy sessions.

• Getting used to wearing a mask, how to put it on, how to take it off, how to make sure you’re wearing your mask and not someone else’s, how to keep your mask clean, how to keep your mask somewhere safe so you don’t lose it. 
• Getting used to putting on gloves and/or feeling gloves on their skin. While gloves may not be required for children to wear, it is important they get used to the sensation of someone wearing gloves touching them. This is a new medium children with sensory difficulties will need to address. 
• While children may not be seeing friends right now, that doesn’t mean that they can’t email them or write them letters. We can target fine motor goals with both of these fun tasks.
• Have clients create their own mask using materials that are given to them, this can work on problem solving and organizing, as well as fine motor skills and following verbal directions.
• Teach students the proper way to wash/sanitize hands (e.g., how to scrub, rinse, amount of time needed to efficiently clean hands, etc.)
• Playing basketball with our hoop in the OT gym, this targets turn taking by throwing a ball back and forth. 
• Imaginative play with toy figures. While we initially planned on putting a lot of our toys away, we now see that our kids need them more than ever. We look forward to expanding imaginative language through playing with our toy house, barn, and other imaginative play toys. They will all be sanitized between sessions. 
• Besides hugs from parents, children haven’t had the touch of friends or teachers in months. We are looking at ways (depending on families comfort level) to have sessions where kids can be on our laps while we read to them or give them a nice hug or high five for a job well done. 
• We also plan to continue using the Wilbarger Brushing protocol, PROMPT motor speech therapy, and deep pressure/joint compression for our clients that need these tactile cues therapeutically. We will do so safely with gloves and/or frequent hand washing. 
• Sensory play that will be child specific (e.g. Play-Doh marked for each client specifically) and gross motor work (e.g. rock climbing and monkey bars in our gym.)
• Encourage problem solving and creativity by helping kids brainstorm fun new games or activities they can do at home this summer.
• We will implement new social stories and make them available to our families. Some of the social stories will include:
  • How school may look in the fall. 
  • How we may have to do some new and different things right now, but this won’t be forever.
  • Stories to help kids know who they can go to or talk to when they are feeling anxious about COVID-19 or the big changes they are experiencing. 
  • Stories about when you do or do not need to wear your mask.​

If you have specific requests for your child, please talk to your clinician. Parents know their child best and see what they are grappling with every day. While we are excited to work on their regular therapy goals, we want to help the whole child. We think it’s important to address  goals like those listed above to target any new concerns that arise during these changing times.

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