Physical rehab for children and teens
Medical name: Pediatric rehabilitation
Overview
The pediatric rehabilitation program at Piedmont Athens Regional provides physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy for children from birth through full development. Our goal is to help your child develop and strengthen their functional potential so they can live their best quality of life.
Why Piedmont
Caring team of experts
Our multidisciplinary team is dedicated to helping your child reach their full physical potential.
Specialized care
Our therapists provide a range of treatments to support your child in their growth and development.
Family-based approach
In addition to caring for kids and teens, we also provide support and education to parents and caregivers.
Our team
Each member of our interdisciplinary team plays an important role in your child’s care.
- Occupational therapists: Our occupational therapist works with your child to facilitate fine motor development such as object manipulation, eye/hand coordination, school readiness skills and self-care skills like dressing, feeding and grooming.
- Physical therapist: Our physical therapist focuses primarily on your child's gross motor development. This includes working on the ability to independently sit, stand and walk with safe, coordinated movements.
- Speech/language pathologist: Our speech/language pathologist assesses your child's ability to communicate appropriately and effectively. Specific skills addressed include how clearly your child speaks and how your child uses and understands language. In addition, pre-speech and language skills can be evaluated for children up to three years of age.
- Pediatric feeding team: Some children have difficulty feeding or swallowing while breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, spoon-feeding or self-feeding. These children may not be able to eat age-appropriate textures or types of food. Our pediatric feeding team—including an occupational therapist and speech/language pathologist—provides a comprehensive evaluation to identify barriers interfering with age-appropriate feeding skills.
- Multidisciplinary care specialists: While some children require services from only one of the previously mentioned areas, many children need multidisciplinary care. In such cases, our treatment philosophy is based on a team approach where therapists collaborate to provide the best possible services for your child.
- Family care team: We emphasize working closely with parents by establishing treatment goals, providing hands-on training and handling techniques, home programs, and parent conferences. We also assist in familiarizing families with available community services and easing the transition into the public school system.
Treatments we offer
- Cochlear implant speech therapy helps a child process and understand the sounds they hear after receiving a cochlear implant.
- Developmental therapy addresses a child’s developmental delays.
- Our feeding program helps children eat age-appropriate foods.
- Home exercise programs can be performed at home to support healthy development.
- Language therapy supports a child’s communication skills.
- An oral pharyngeal motility study (OPMS) is an imaging test to assess how a child swallows.
- Parent training empowers parents as they care for their children.
- Premature birth follow-up assessments are regular check-ups to assess developmental milestones, including neurological and physical development.
- Sensory integration therapy helps a child adapt to sensory information in their environment.
- Social skills support teaches children the skills they need to interact with others.
- A speech-language pathologist leads stuttering therapy to help reduce stuttering.
- Voice therapy can prevent or treat a vocal disorder.
Meet the team
Related locations
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