Let me assist your child to reach their full potential.
What can I help you with?
Occupational Therapy Services
- Is your child struggling in school?
- Is your child late in reaching their milestones?
- I offer a full range of occupational services for Functional assessment and treatment of children
- Stimulation of expected developmental milestones
- School readiness assessments
- Evaluation and therapy for kids with learning difficulties
Formats for Pre-School Class Reports
- Easy to use formats for pre-school class reports.
- For children age 3 months – 6 years old. Each age band has their own class report.
- Developmental areas include movement, activities of daily living, communication, cognitive skills, personality traits, play, ball skills, and more…
Online child assessments
Child Development Tracker On-line screening tool
These on-line child screening tools were developed with the following in mind:
- To assist parents and teacher to track a child’s development
- To recognize a child’s strengths
Early childhood Development checklist / Mylpale vir Kinderontwikkeling
Determine if a child is functioning according to his/her age level or as a guideline for age-appropriate stimulation activities (for teachers, therapist, parents). This is not a standardized test. Includes age-appropriate milestones from birth up to age 6. It also includes age-appropriate stimulation activities.
Tips for parents and teachers
Why do some children struggle to write neatly?
Causes of poor handwriting Poor visual perceptual skillsPoor muscle tonePoor postural controlPoor fine eye-hand coordinationPoor hand function Poor motor planningPoor sensory integrationPoor visio-motor integrationPoor concentration ADHD/ADDCognitive and psychological factorsDysgraphia: this is a neurological disorder resulting in problematic handwriting. This disorder sometimes accompanies ADHD, Asperger’s, learning disabilities, trauma and physical disabilities. Criteria for diagnosis include the…
Kids and depression
2,5% of kids in America are depressed (stats in South Africa were not available – from the Anxiety and Depression Support Group). Children as young as 3 years old can be identified with depression. It is more common in boys under 10 years and more common in girls during puberty. Depression won’t go away by…
Why is it important to stimulate your child from an early age?
Stimulation is necessary for survival of a new-born baby. Touch for a new-born is the most important sensory stimulation that a baby needs for survival. Failure to thrive will occur if a new-born is not touched regularly. Advance brain development will occur if a baby is stimulated beyond what naturally occurs to raise a baby.…
Dyslexia vs Laterality
How does the child present in the classroom The child with Dyslexia: Confusing b/d Reverses letters/numbers Skips words/lines when reading Performs poorly in spellings tests Has anxiety when reading Guesses words when reading Reading and/or spelling below age level Knows the work when mom asked them at home but performs poorly in the exa Adds…
Ideas to improve of reading, spelling and comprehension
Name the starting sound/ending sound of words Name and identify letters of the alphabet (sound the letter) – start with lower-case letters and progress to capital letters Write letters – let the child learn the correct forming of each letter: practice this by writing it in salt, forming it with clay, writing down on paper…
Why do some kids struggle to read and spell?
Good readers are: phonemically aware (can sound the letters) knows die letters of the alphabet possess strong vocabularies (knows appropriate words for their age) knows syntactical and grammatical skills e.g. spelling rules It is vital that visual perceptual skills (the building blocks for reading and writing) are intact: Discrimination Memory Sequential memory Form constancy Closure…
Why do some kids struggle in school?
What could cause a child to struggle in school? Developmental delay The parents will hopefully have realize this early on and taken the child for therapy. Learning difficulties These difficulties usually only become apparent when a child goes to nursery school or Gr. R. Referring a child for an assessment at an occupational therapist. Emotional…
So what does dyslexia really mean?
(All information was obtained from Stark – Griffin’s book Dyslexia) I can test for and treat dyslexia in children Gr. 3 – Gr. 12.I am registered as a specialist on the Red Apple website and www.disleksie.co.za Definition of dyslexia A neurological-functional problem manifesting as a deficit in word decoding (reading), encoding (spelling) and nemkinesia (writing)…
What is Autism?
Autism forms part of a wider diagnosis called autism spectrum disorders. Other diagnosis that also falls under the autism spectrum disorder is Asperger’s syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder and disintegrative disorder. It is believed that 1 in 88 children suffer from autism. The exact cause of autism is still unknown but it is believed that genetics…
What is occupational therapy all about?
Occupational therapists: Assist people to reach their full potential in independence in all areas of their life focusing more on play (work for adults) and activities of daily living (e.g. eating, bathing, dressing, driving, etc.). We treat a person in a holistic way looking at their unique personality, social support system, financial situation, their strengths…
What my clients say
Carla baie dankie vir jou diens! Jy is vriendelik en geduldig en my seuntjie het baie veilig by jou gevoel!
Sandre Hunter
Did the 15 month online assessment and gave me a good indication of what is expected at this age and where our daughter lies.
Jean-Mari Scharneck
You are absolutely fantastic! Within the first week, we could see a difference in our son. When phasing out from his then OT, she also asked what we were doing differently as our son has improved significantly! His weekly sessions helps a lot, and so does the paper homework .. so by so, that he is even starting to ask when we will be doing some homework :-). He is very keen to show us what he has been doing during the session with you, and the video clips of exercises that you send (with the explanation of what it helps for), turns into lots of fun and giggles.
The monthly informal evaluation is also of great help because we can see the exercises being done to enable us to also assist from our side and to know what we can work on.
Thank you for your open door policy and that we can call upon your expert advice when needed.
You are truly the BEST!
Martie Venter
I highly recommend Carla she has been very thorough in evaluations and assessments.
Monthly feedback is received and you know the exact progress your child is making.
She is a very skilled therapist. This can be seen in the growth and development I have seen in our child.
Lize Vermaak
Need an Example of the Formats for Pre-School Report?
