Pediatric Rehabilitation in North Central Pa.

OT focuses on giving kids skills to do things on their own.

At UPMC Rehabilitation Institute - Pediatrics in north central Pa., we have one-on-one programs to help your child work on:

• Fine motor skills.
• Visual motor skills.
• Perceptual motor skills.
• Activities of daily living.
• Sensory needs.
• Splinting.
• Feeding needs.

We test and treat kids with delays that interfere with all parts of their lives.

We also hold age-specific summer group OT sessions that offer structured activities and local outings.

These sessions cover:

• Fine and gross motor skills.
• Meal preparation.
• Healthy living.
• Social skills.

Feeding issues in infants, kids, and teens occur for many reasons.

These may include:

• The inability to use the mouth for speaking, eating, chewing, blowing, or making specific sounds.
• Physical changes to the mouth and throat.
• Missed milestones.
• Sensory processing issues.
• Mental health worries.

A visit with a feeding therapist may be right for kids who:

• Don't eat enough.
• Refuse foods or are picky eaters.
• Don't gain enough weight.
• Have trouble swallowing.
• Often cough, gag, or choke when eating.
• Have sensory problems.
• Have trouble chewing.
• Have oral sensory issues.

Our experts test, treat, and support kids with eating or swallowing problems at UPMC Williamsport. To plan a visit, call 570-321-2605.

PT can help children with many health issues, such as:

• Illnesses they were born with (congenital).
• Neck muscles that twist their head to one side (infant torticollis).
• Muscles, brain and spine, or bone and joint problems.
• Missed movement milestones.
• Problems with balance and syncing movements.
• Healing from injuries.

We tailor care to each child.

It may include:

• Work to improve range of motion, strength, bending, endurance, and balance.
• Gait training for kids that have a hard time walking.
• Soft tissue massage and guided joint movement.
• Work to help meet milestones.
• Sports-specific training.
• Help with movements they need to sit, stand, roll over, lift, and carry objects.

PT sessions are often hard work. We make them fun and more like play when we work with kids.

We maximize each child's potential and urge them to thrive, even with limitations.

Problems speaking or grasping words can make school, social life, and learning hard for kids. Therapy can help prevent, diagnose, and treat speech-related issues.

Types of speech issues we can help your child with include:

• Grasping what others say (receptive language).
• Sharing their thoughts, ideas, and feelings (expressive language).
• Making sounds and putting them together (articulation).
• Greeting, commenting, asking questions, minding rules for conversation, and storytelling (social communication).
• Remembering what they hear in both the short- and long-term.
• Not doing what someone asks of them.
• Not grasping the meaning of orders.
• Not getting the details of a story or retaining them.
• Not able to notice and work with the spoken parts of words.
• Lacking in memory skills.

Some common children's speech issues we treat include:

• Apraxia.
• ASD.
• Auditory processing disorder.
• Fluency.
• Hard of hearing.
• Language delays.
• Sound perception.