SERVICES
Our Services
Playright offers pediatric occupational therapy services to families located in or around our Huntersville, North Carolina location. The clinic space is designed to be calming, sensory-focused, and very creative for the children that visit. Kimberley Arnett-DeSimone (OTR/L) is the therapist at Playright and has been treating children since 1988 with specialties in the following areas:
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
Social and emotional learning (SEL) refers to a process through which individuals, particularly children and adolescents, acquire and develop a range of skills, attitudes, and competencies that enable them to recognize and manage their emotions effectively, establish positive relationships with others, make responsible decisions, and navigate various social situations successfully. SEL is a framework for promoting emotional intelligence, self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and interpersonal skills.
Key components of social and emotional learning include:
Self-Awareness: Understanding and recognizing one's own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and values. This includes the ability to accurately assess one's feelings and reflect on how they influence behavior.
Self-Regulation: The capacity to manage and control one's emotions, impulses, and reactions in various situations. It involves strategies for handling stress, frustration, and strong emotions constructively.
Social Awareness: Developing empathy and an understanding of the emotions, perspectives, and needs of others. Socially aware individuals are more attuned to the feelings of those around them.
Relationship Skills: Learning to establish and maintain positive relationships with peers, family members, and colleagues. This includes communication, active listening, conflict resolution, and cooperation.
Responsible Decision-Making: Developing the ability to make ethical, safe, and responsible choices. This involves considering the consequences of one's actions and weighing the potential impact on oneself and others.
SEL is considered essential for promoting a positive learning climate, improving behavior, improving academic performance, and enhancing overall well-being.
By fostering social and emotional learning, individuals are better equipped to cope with life's challenges, form healthy relationships, and lead more fulfilling and successful lives. Occupational therapy can help children figure out how to handle feelings, work with others, and understand themselves
Executive Functioning
This is the ability to use our working memory to concentrate, reason, flexibly problem solve, plan, and recall relevant information while engaged in setting and achieving goals in our daily lives.
Visual Perceptual Skills
Visual perception refers to the process by which the brain interprets and makes sense of visual information it receives from the eyes. It encompasses the ability to perceive and understand the visual world, including the recognition of objects, shapes, colors, motion, depth, and spatial relationships. This is how children learn, solve problems, and use their eyes and brains to understand the world around them.
Postural-Ocular Motor Development
Postural-ocular motor development refers to the maturation and coordination of two essential components of a child's sensory and motor development: posture and ocular (eye) control. This developmental process involves the integration of sensory information from the visual system, vestibular system (responsible for balance and spatial orientation), and proprioceptive system (sensing body position and movement) to achieve and maintain appropriate body posture and eye movements. The development of postural control is crucial for activities such as sitting upright, standing, walking, and engaging in various physical activities. The development of ocular motor control is essential for tasks such as reading, tracking moving objects, and maintaining gaze stability during head movements. For example, when a child is reading while sitting, their posture and eye movements need to work together to maintain a stable and comfortable position. The vestibular system also plays a role in this integration, as it helps the child adjust their posture and eye movements based on changes in head and body position.
Sensory Integration and Processing/Sensory Modulation
Children take in information through their senses (touch, sight, sound, movement) and use this information to act, react, and function. Their ability to manage or control their reactions is a result of how well their brain integrates, organizes and responds to what they see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Sensory processing encompasses tactile, visual, auditory, vestibular, proprioceptive, olfactory, gustatory, and interoception.
Interoception refers to the ability to perceive and sense the internal physiological state of one's body. It involves being aware of signals and sensations originating from within the body, such as heartbeat, breathing rate, hunger, thirst, temperature, and feelings of pain, discomfort, or visceral sensations like a full stomach or a racing heart. Interoception allows individuals to have a sense of their internal well-being and bodily needs.
This internal awareness is crucial for maintaining overall health and responding appropriately to bodily signals. For example, interoception helps you recognize when you are hungry and need to eat or when you are tired and need rest. It also plays a role in emotional awareness, as bodily sensations often accompany emotional experiences.
Sensory modulation refers to the brain's ability to regulate and control the way it processes sensory information from the environment. This process allows an individual to filter, adjust, or adapt to sensory stimuli, such as sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations, in a way that is appropriate and manageable for their well-being and functioning.
Sensory modulation involves various mechanisms that help maintain an optimal level of arousal and attention. It can include processes like habituation (becoming less responsive to a constant or repetitive stimulus), sensitization (increased responsiveness to a novel or salient stimulus), and sensory integration (the ability to combine and process multiple sensory inputs simultaneously).
Individuals with sensory processing disorders or other neurological conditions may have difficulties with sensory modulation. They may either overreact or underreact to sensory stimuli, leading to challenges in their daily lives. Occupational therapists often work with individuals who have sensory modulation issues to help them develop strategies and coping mechanisms to better regulate their sensory experiences.
More Services
Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)
Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) for children refer to a set of essential self-care tasks and skills that are necessary for a child's overall well-being, independence, and successful functioning in their daily life. These activities vary depending on a child's developmental stage. ADLs for children typically include the following:
Personal Hygiene
Dressing
Mealtime Skills
Household Chores
Fine and Gross Motor (Praxis, Coordination)
Sleep and Rest Balance
Inter-personal Communication to Connect
Play and Leisure Activities
The specific ADLs that are relevant for a child can vary based on their age, developmental stage, and individual abilities.
Fine Motor and Handwriting
Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) for children refer to a set of essential self-care tasks and skills that are necessary for a child's overall well-being, independence, and successful functioning in their daily life. These activities vary depending on a child's developmental stage. ADLs for children typically include the following:
Personal Hygiene
Dressing
Mealtime Skills
Household Chores
Fine and Gross Motor (Praxis, Coordination)
Sleep and Rest Balance
Inter-personal Communication to Connect
Play and Leisure Activities
The specific ADLs that are relevant for a child can vary based on their age, developmental stage, and individual abilities.
