What We Treat
Zero to a hundred over the wrong cup. Forty minutes to come back down. You are not failing at discipline, and he is not choosing this. It starts with a comprehensive evaluation, one-on-one with a licensed occupational and physical therapist.
Sound Familiar?
More than two? You are not the only house on the block.
Why It Happens
Self-regulation is a plain thing with a clinical name: noticing where your body and your feelings are, then doing something about it. Settling down. Waking up. Waiting one more minute. Adults run it all day without noticing. It is a skill that gets built, not a personality, and it gets built on top of the sensory system. If a kid cannot feel his body revving, he cannot bring it down. If the world already sounds too loud to him, he starts every morning much closer to the edge than the kids beside him.
Which is why the meltdown is almost never about the cup. The cup is the last small thing stacked on a day of noise, transitions, hunger and effort. A consequence does not install a skill, and “calm down” only works on a kid who already knows how. So we build the pieces in order: awareness first, then strategies he can run without you standing there, then practice under real pressure. A comprehensive initial evaluation is where we find out which piece is actually missing.
The Honest Truth
You were told he would settle down when he got a little older. You nodded politely, and you kept watching. Trusting your own read on your own kid isn’t impatience. It’s the thing that gets him help sooner.
How It Works
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like when the hard part is coming back down.
Starts at the evaluation
Pinpoint
The pain here is friction: the morning fight, the ruined dinner, the bedtime that eats your whole evening. The comprehensive evaluation finds his real triggers and his real off-ramps, so the hard days start getting shorter.
The early weeks
Prime
Heavy work, swinging, climbing and deep pressure build the awareness that has to come first. You cannot slow down an engine you cannot hear running.
As the skills come online
Perform
Waiting his turn. Losing a game. Getting off the zipline when the timer goes. He rehearses the real moments here, with support, until he can run them without one.
Carryover and discharge
Prevent
You get a home program and we collaborate directly with his school, so the same words get used everywhere. Discharge planning starts once goals are being met with at least 80% accuracy.
My sister found Planet Sensory Occupational Therapy and it has been a game-changer. After just 4 months of bi-weekly visits my son is more confident, engaged, social, and more communicative. His ability to communicate using words vs crying or tantrums has improved greatly.
Carmen T.
Before: crying and tantrums instead of words
After: more confident, engaged, social, and more communicative
Questions, Answered
Behavior is what you can see. Regulation is what sits under it. A kid who goes from zero to a hundred is usually not choosing it: he is missing the skill that lets him notice he is climbing and do something about it, and that skill is built on top of how his body takes in sound, touch and movement. That is why consequences on their own rarely move it. The comprehensive initial evaluation, one-on-one with a licensed occupational and physical therapist, is where we find out which part is actually missing.
A reward chart assumes the skill is already there and the motivation is not. For most of these kids it is the other way around. He wants to hold it together, he just does not know how yet. So we build the pieces in order: body awareness first, then strategies he can run without you, then practice under real pressure in a 2,100 square foot sensory gym where the pressure is genuine but safe. Charts work much better sitting on top of a skill.
Carryover is part of the plan, not a bonus. Your therapist reassesses regularly, and debriefs with you after every session about what to try before the next one, and goals are written around the moments that actually happen in your house: the transition, the car, the bedtime. Discharge planning starts once goals are being met with at least 80% accuracy, followed by a home program. You should never be guessing where you are in the plan.
You watch, every time. HD cameras stream the session to a television in the waiting area, so you can see exactly what your child does and how the therapist handles the moment it gets hard. Then the therapist debriefs with you: what happened, what worked, what to carry home. Parents tell us this is the part that changes their week, because they stop guessing what went on behind a closed door.
In New York, a pediatric occupational therapist can evaluate and treat without a physician referral for up to 30 days, for non-restorative services such as handwriting, learning and developmental skill training, when your child is not in acute care. We are an out-of-network provider and we submit claims on your behalf when your plan has out-of-network benefits. Self-pay, the comprehensive initial evaluation is $360, then $90 for 30 minutes, $135 for 45 minutes, and $180 for 60 minutes.
Book Your Visit
Tell us what you’re noticing at home. A real person calls you back to set up the comprehensive evaluation. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’
5.0 · 28 Google reviews
Ages 2 to 16, individual and group
Step 1 of 5
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to set up the evaluation and answer whatever you didn’t get to ask.
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