What We Treat
The kid who is always last down the field, or watching from the fence. Running, climbing and balance are learned skills, which means they can be taught. It starts with a comprehensive evaluation, one-on-one with a licensed occupational and physical therapist.
Sound Familiar?
Two or more sound familiar? Keep going.
Why It Happens
Big movement runs on three things, and only one of them is muscle. There is strength, mostly through the middle of the body, because arms and legs cannot be steady on a trunk that isn’t. There is balance, which comes from the inner ear and from feeling the ground through the feet. And there is motor planning, which is a technical way of saying working out a brand new movement in the right order before your body has ever done it once. That last one is why a kid can be plenty strong and still stop dead at the bottom of a climbing wall.
None of it is fixed at birth, and none of it improves by being avoided. A kid who feels unsteady sits out, and sitting out is exactly how the base stops getting built. That loop is the thing worth breaking. A comprehensive initial evaluation looks at strength, balance, coordination, and how your kid approaches a movement he has never tried, and then we start at whichever layer is actually holding him back rather than the one that shows.
The Honest Truth
You’ve been told he will catch up, and maybe he will. But you are the one standing at the park watching, and you already know what you saw. That isn’t overreacting. That is paying attention.
How It Works
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for running, climbing and balance.
Starts at the evaluation
Pinpoint
What hurts here is being last, and the sitting out that follows it. The comprehensive evaluation finds what is genuinely hard for him, so the next trip to the park can have one small win in it.
The early weeks
Prime
Core strength, balance and body awareness. Everything from the monkey bars to a two-wheeler depends on a trunk that can hold still while the arms and legs do the work.
As the skills come online
Perform
Running, jumping, climbing, catching, and figuring out a movement he has never done before. On the zipline and the climbing wall first, then at recess where it counts.
Carryover and discharge
Prevent
You get a home program and we collaborate directly with his school. Discharge planning starts once goals are being met with at least 80% accuracy, and you leave knowing what to do when the next new skill turns up.
As both a mom and a physical therapist (not a pediatric therapist!), I can honestly say this place is amazing. The therapists are creative, patient and really know how to connect with kids. My daughter actually looks forward to going, which says everything.
Stacy L.
Before: a mom who is also a physical therapist, looking for the right place for her own daughter
After: “my daughter actually looks forward to going, which says everything”
Questions, Answered
Some kids do. The problem is that the kids who catch up and the kids who do not look almost identical at four, and the only way to find out by waiting is to wait. Big motor skills stack on each other, so a year spent finding out is a year of building he does not get back. An evaluation is a low-risk way to get a real answer: either you are reassured, or you start now instead of next September.
Planet Sensory is a pediatric occupational and physical therapy practice, and the comprehensive initial evaluation decides what your child actually needs rather than which label fits best. Either way the work happens one-on-one with a licensed occupational and physical therapist, in a 2,100 square foot sensory gym with a zipline, monkey bars and a climbing wall. For a kid who is behind on movement, the room itself does a lot of the work.
Team sports are great, and they are not practice for the piece that is missing. A field asks a kid to run, plan, balance and coordinate all at once, at speed, in front of his friends, which is the hardest possible place to build a skill he does not have yet. We take the movement apart, build the weak piece on its own, then put it back into the whole thing. Most families do both, and the sport gets easier.
It is a comprehensive initial evaluation, and to your kid it looks like the best gym he has ever been let loose in. We watch how he runs, climbs, balances and catches, and most tellingly how he approaches a movement he has never done before. You see it too: HD cameras stream the session to a television in the waiting area, and the therapist debriefs with you afterward. You leave with a plan that has an endpoint.
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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