How can you help your child come out of this state?
Good parenting no doubt helps foster self confidence in the child. Children whose parents have themselves suffered depression have high probabilities of early depressive symptoms.
Watch out for the signs of depression as a responsible parent. Help developing coping strategies in your child. Give a patient ear to your child’s talk and do not shirk them as unimportant. Its these talks that not only strengthen your bond with the child but also give your child a sense of self and a source of venting out.
Reinforce positive feelings in your child. Foster the sense of being wanted and loved.
Take your child to a professional if you are not in a situation to handle him. It is never too late to learn.

Can an occupational therapist or pediatric rehabilitation therapist help your child?
Yes. A rehabilitation professional with adequate knowledge of child psychology can prove of immense benefit to your child. Your therapist will be able to evaluate and help you understand your child better. A psychiatric consultation may also be necessary.
Play therapy is one of the apt methods to not only evaluate but also to rehabilitate children with low self esteem, decreased interest in activities.

Childhood Depression

What are the signs of early depression ?

Any child who feels sad need not be depressed. Childhood depression is different from the developmental emotional variations that children exhibit day to day. Childhood depression is a symptomatic condition that is persistent in nature and turns to be disruptive and interfering in the child’s social, family and school life.

How to recognize that your child is going in to depression?

No two children show perfectly similar signs of being depressed. In some it may go undetected. But in those whom it can be detected show:
• Irritability or anger
• Continuous feelings of sadness, hopelessness
• Withdrawal or loss of interest in activities which were otherwise interesting.
• Loss of concentration and lack of interest in school work and related activities
• Solitary play and decreased social interaction
• Increased sensitivity to rejection and outbursts of crying or irritability
• Inexplicable physical symptoms like stomachache and head ache not responding to treatment
• Feelings of low self esteem, guilt and worthlessness.
• Loss of energy and early fatiguability
• Sudden Changes in sleep and appetite

Developmental Profile

Every child has his own exclusive way of development. This not only involves physical but also mental, cognitive, perceptual development which shape the child’s personality and his challenge accepting capacity. If the child’s development in various areas is evaluated one can enhance their mental, cognitive and physical skills by training them in appropriate areas.
It is just like if you feel your child likes number play he may be made to develop liking in Mathematics and related subjects.

But how does one know how the child is developing?

A Developmental Profile is the tool that helps enormously in understanding the nature of your child’s development.


Developmental Profile
Find answers to these and many such questions by having your child’s Developmental Profile evaluated.

• Unlock hidden physical and mental potential of the child
• Understand how dominance (left or right) plays a significant role in child development
• Is your child holding his pencil the right way?
• Has your child developed his hand dominance?
• Does he hyperactive or just has extra energy?
• What type of play should he engage in?
• Are his physical and mental skills age appropriate?
• Are there any areas of improvement or concern?

Developmental Profile evaluates:
1. Cognitive Area: Attention and Concentration
 Comprehension
 Power to imagine, Creativity and
Activity Planning

2. Perceptual Area:
 Understand spatial Orientation
 Body awareness to self and surrounding
3. Gross Motor:
 Posture and Balance
 Physical Activity Performance
 Muscle Strength and Joint flexibility


4. Fine Motor Coordination:
 Ability to write
 Perform hand prehensile activities

5. Visuo Motor:
 Coordination of eyes
 Visual focus

6. Play:
 Type of play

Developmental Profile helps in:
 Enhancing your child’s physical skills
 Enriching his cognitive capacity
 Improving his hand functions
 Choosing right play activities
 Making him more self sufficient and confident

SI in visually challenged:

The goals of therapy in visually challenged individual using SI approach would be:
 Develop other sensory channels for meaningful reception and interpretation of stimuli
 Minimize the deficits caused by visual loss in other sensory channels especially auditory
 Ameliorate self stimulatory behaviors especially those providing visual stimulation by use of appropriate vestibulo-proprioceptive strategies
 Help the child understand personal space and his relation with external space
 Teach the child spatial relations in absence of visual information
 Organize the child to function in the dynamic environment

Who can benefit from sensory integrative management and treatment?
SI can benefit any child who wants to successfully engage in his/her occupation.

Can SI be used for typically developing children? What are the benefits if the child has normal processing?
Many of the SI evaluations, checklists, parameter and cluster relations are done on typically developing children and then on children deficient.

In typically developing children whose sensory processing is not affected ideally but may be underused or non channelized. Children need an environment that provides them with just the right challenge in the activities. SI theory and intervention is based on this principle. So a typical child who undergoes systematic SI based play or therapy will definitely have a better organized sensory processing.

Where else can SI be used?
SI can be used in treatment of children with any type of sensory processing difficulties like the ones mentioned on the checklist. It can be used for confirmed diagnoses of Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity disorders, Autism, Learning Disorders and many other Childhood Developmental Disorders.

SI principles can be used to treat children with mental handicap, visual handicap.

How does SI help in mental and visual handicap?
As visual and mental challenges pose difficulties in sensory processing abilities of the child SI therapy can prove beneficial in these conditions.

SI in Mentally Challenged Children:
Although Mentally challenged children have chronological age appropriate physical development they show mental development of variable age not relevant to their present age. That makes them behaviorally disorganized, play patterns are primitive, other areas of sensory processing are under or hyper acting.

Use of SI based theory helps making the mentally challenged child more organized and have better self control. It develops the hand functions through its tactile approach. It enhances their praxis and motor planning during activity performance.