TriHealth’s Pediatric Developmental Assessment and Therapy Program focuses on the developmental status of infants, including gross motor skills, oral motor skills, sensorimotor skills, cognitive motor skills, and pre-speech and language skills. We service both the 60-bed, Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Good Samaritan Hospital and the Level II Special Care Nursery at Bethesda North.
Pediatric Therapy Services
Infants are seen as inpatients, and for follow-up care, high-risk assessment, multidisciplinary team assessment and oxymetry or early discharge clinic. Continued early intervention (birth to age 3) services are provided for infants and toddlers as indicated.
Developmental Therapy in the NICU includes the following services:
- Developmental and family-centered care
- Supportive positioning and handling
- Environmental modification
- Infant massage
- Oral motor evaluation
- Cue-based feeling
- Evaluation and treatment of neonatal tone, reflexes and behavioral states
Pediatric Occupational Therapy
- Fine motor function
- Splinting
- Therapeutic exercises
- Sensory integrative therapy
- Equipment recommendations
- Self-care skills including feeding & dressing
- Family education
Pediatric Physical Therapy
- Gross motor function
- Therapeutic exercises
- Gait training
- Balance/coordination training
- Orthotic management
- Equipment recommendations
- Craniosacral therapy
- Myofascial release
- Family education
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Pediatric Speech Pathology
- Pre-speech and cognitive play skills
- Early language comprehension and
expression
- Articulation and phonological disorders
- Childhood apraxia of speech
- Feeding and swallowing disorders
- Family education
Pediatric Audiology
- Infant hearing screening
- Diagnostic auditory brainstem response testing
- Tympanometry
- Acoustic reflex testing
- Otoacoustic emission testing
- Audiometric testing
- Parent education resources/referrals for identified hearing impaired children
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Pediatric Developmental Conditions Treated
- Prematurity
- Abnormal neurological findings
- Severe birth asphyxia
- Meningitis
- Low apgars
- Low birth weight
- Feeding difficulties
- Neonatal abstinence syndrome
- Congenital defects
- Motor delays
- Learning difficulties
- Sensory integrative dysfunction
- Communication disorders
Your Pediatric Care Team
A multidisciplinary team of medical professionals are involved in this program, allowing us to provide comprehensive services in one convenient location. Your care team includes:
- The medical coordinator is a neonatologist who coordinates all services involved in the program. The medical coordinator reviews your child’s medical history and the reason for referral. The medical coordinator can perform a physical examination, as needed.
- The occupational therapist assesses how behavior and sensorimotor development affect your child’s ability to learn. With the younger child, the occupational therapist is interested in their activity level, tolerance of stimulation, feeding and hand function. In the older child, the ability to organize sensory information (touch, movement, vision…) is related to perceptual skills, hand skills and activity level. The occupational therapist assesses these and their affect on behavior, self-care activities and fine motor development.
- The physical therapist assesses your child’s muscle tone, movement patterns, reflexes and milestones related to gross motor development, including the quality of movement.
- The speech pathologist assesses pre-speech and language and cognitive development. With a younger child, the speech-language pathologist evaluates the ability to maintain eye contact, the ability to produce different types of cries, the ability to recognize sounds and the ability to produce sounds. With the older child, the ability to follow directions and word production is assessed.
- The audiologist assesses whether sound is being heard appropriately. How a child hears also matures and is directly related to other developmental milestones, especially those of communication. A child must be able to hear and process sound in order to learn speech and language.