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FAQs

Common Questions

What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational therapy looks like kids are just playing, but within that play, we build in a variety of ways to teach new developmental skills. Your child's "occupation" is to learn and grow. OT helps address anything that may be interfering with your child's ability to develop the life skills that help them thrive at home and at school.  

What is sensory integration?

Your child is taking in information from the world around us and needs to determine in a split second what information to pay attention to, what information to ignore, and how to respond. Our nervous system and sensory systems keep us safe. Motor development, social skills, and the ability to stay regulated can all be impacted if we aren’t getting reliable information from our senses. OTs are uniquely positioned as a profession to address sensory challenges through a variety of interventions. Parenting a child with sensory differences can be a challenge. Working with an experienced professional can help you through the challenges and make your days easier. To learn more about sensory integration: https://pathways.org/topics-of-development/sensory/.

How do I know if my child needs Occupational Therapy?

Sometimes as a parent you instinctively know your child is not developing in the way you expected and you want things to be easier for them.  You might see them struggling with:

  • fine motor skills like writing or cutting

  • the ability to focus and learn at school

  • gross motor skills like throwing, catching, balancing

  • making friends of their own age

  • respecting the personal space of peers

  • inability to calm themselves when frustrated or anxious

  • being independent with daily activities of life like toileting, cutting their food, fastening their clothing

  • OT can help do the detective work to find out what is getting in their way.

  • being overly sensitive to sensory input like movement, textures, sounds, lights etc

  • being underactive to sensory input and seeking to excessively move, touch things, make noises etc                   

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Development builds upon itself, so the earlier we can intervene the less compounded these issues become. Rather than grow out of things, children tend to compensate. As children become aware that some things are more challenging for them than their peers, it can impact their self-esteem and social relationships.

We want them to feel successful and understand that any challenges are not because something is "wrong". We want to empower them to use their strengths to help them in the areas that are more challenging. 

What can we expect as part of the process?

  • Initial Free of Charge Discovery phone call- to get to know each other more and for us to ensure I will be the best fit to help you and your child in therapy.

  • Assess- Following the Discovery call, we can schedule your child for either a comprehensive OT evaluation or a less formal consultation to determine your child's strengths and areas of need. The comprehensive evaluation will include a full detailed written report with standardized tests scores where appropriate. Some parents prefer a less formal consultation where needs will be established, but without the formal write up. School observations can be part of this assessment.

  • Develop Plan of Care- based on the findings I will develop a tailor made and evidence based plan of care and therapy goals for your child . Most plans of care are developed for a 6+month duration of therapy for your child. In some cases, where ongoing therapy is not warranted, a home program may be established for parents and/or teachers. 

  • Treatment- This is where the fun begins as we work with your child to build the skills needed to meet their goals in therapy. Treatment sessions are always play-based to ensure your child enjoys participating and coming to therapy each visit. For some children we do weekly sessions. In other cases we may do intensives, meaning multiple sessions a week for 2-4 wks and then switch to a home program. 

  • Discharge- When your child has consistently met all of their goals in therapy, we will discuss ending regular therapy sessions. This includes providing families resources and activities for continued carryover at home.

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Do you accept insurance?

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Although I do not directly bill insurance, I can easily provide families with a monthly superbill, which typically contains all of the information necessary to submit for out-of-network benefits. Out-of-network benefits vary greatly between plans, often as a percentage of the cost after subtracting the in-network copay. In general, if a plan is a PPO plan (not an EPO or HMO), it will have out-of-network benefits. In some cases, children with EPO/HMO plans may be approved for out-of-network reimbursement based on the lack in-network providers who specialize in our practice areas. Often, this must be authorized with the assistance of your child’s pediatrician prior to the start of services. The best way to find out what out-of-network benefits you may have is to contact the member services department for your insurance plan. I am happy to fill out any additional forms that specific insurance companies may require.

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If my child is going to be seen in the clinic, where is it located?

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We will meet at Children Therapy Services where I collaborate with the clinic founder, Denise Modolo MS/OTR/L.

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Children Therapy Services (Essex Center)

412 Redhill Ave 

San Anselmo, CA 94960

Suite 3

There is convenient parking in the back of the building.

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www.childrenstherapyservices.net/ 

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