What We Treat
You cut the tag out of every shirt. You check the bathroom for a hand dryer before you go in. You are not imagining this, and your kid is not being difficult. It starts with a comprehensive evaluation, one-on-one with a licensed occupational and physical therapist.
Sound Familiar?
Recognize two or more? You are in the right place.
Why It Happens
Every second, your kid’s brain takes in sound, light, touch, smell and movement, then decides what matters and what to ignore. That sorting job is what people mean by sensory processing. When the volume is turned up too high, ordinary input arrives like an alarm: the tag, the hand dryer, the crowded gym at pickup. When it is turned down too low, the signal barely registers, so your kid goes looking for more of it, crashing, jumping, squeezing and chewing, just to feel where their body is in space.
That is why nothing that looks like discipline ever moves it. You cannot consequence a nervous system into calibrating itself. It has to get the right input, at the right intensity, in an order that builds, and it has to practice. A comprehensive initial evaluation sorts out which channels are running too hot, which are running too quiet, and what your kid has already invented to cope. Find that, and the plan writes itself.
The Honest Truth
You didn’t need a checklist to tell you something was different. You’ve known for a while. The parents who get here fastest are the ones who stopped waiting for someone else to confirm it.
How It Works
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for a kid whose senses are running too hot or too quiet.
Starts at the evaluation
Pinpoint
What hurts right now isn’t a joint. It’s the daily friction: the fight over the shirt, the trip that ends early. The comprehensive evaluation finds what is actually setting her off, so you can stop guessing this week.
The early weeks
Prime
Swinging, deep pressure, climbing and heavy work, dosed on purpose. This is where body awareness and tolerance get built, so the skills we want later have something solid to sit on.
As the skills come online
Perform
Sitting through circle time. Staying at the table for dinner. Walking into a loud gym and staying in it. First she does it here, then she does it at school and at home.
Carryover and discharge
Prevent
You get a home program and we collaborate directly with her school. Discharge planning starts once goals are being met with at least 80% accuracy: that’s the endpoint, not just another appointment.
I was excited to see a sensory gym coming to Baldwin and they did not disappoint. Ester was very welcoming, friendly and knowledgeable. Ester was so patient with my 7 yo son who has autism and sensory challenges.
Roschelle M.
Before: hoping a sensory gym opening in Baldwin would be the right one
After: “they did not disappoint”
Questions, Answered
Some of it softens with age. Some of it just gets better hidden. Kids are very good at quietly avoiding whatever overwhelms them, so what looks like growing out of it is often a smaller life: fewer parties, fewer foods, fewer new places. Skills build on skills, and the sooner a nervous system gets the right input, the less catching up there is to do later. A comprehensive initial evaluation will tell you whether you are looking at a phase or a pattern.
No diagnosis is needed to be evaluated. 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. If care continues past that window we will tell you exactly what your doctor needs to send, and we will help you get it. You do not have to sit on a waitlist to find out what is going on.
Different, and meant to sit alongside it. School services are tied to what a child needs in order to access their education, and they are often shared with other kids. Here your child is one-on-one with a licensed occupational and physical therapist in a 2,100 square foot sensory gym, working on goals you helped set, including the ones that only show up at home. We collaborate directly with your child’s school so the two are pulling in the same direction.
It is a comprehensive initial evaluation, and to your child it mostly looks like play. We watch how she responds to sound, touch, movement and texture, what she seeks out, what she steers around, and how she pulls herself back together when the room gets busy. You are not left guessing: 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.
We are an out-of-network provider, and we submit claims on your behalf when your plan has out-of-network benefits. Self-pay rates are $360 for the comprehensive initial evaluation, then $90 for 30 minutes, $135 for 45 minutes, and $180 for 60 minutes. An 8-session package is 10% off and a 12-session package is 15% off. We accept credit cards, cash, checks, FSA and HSA, and if benefits run out, care continues on private pay with a payment plan.
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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