Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have a question about our services or speech and occupational therapy in general? You might find the answer in our FAQ below! If you cannot find what you’re after feel free to contact us via the form on this page or Contact Us. We are here to help!
For easy parking, the Union Road Car Park, located just behind our building, is open to the public. Alternatively, you can make use of the ample parking available at Penrith Westfield, just a short walk away.
Referrals are not necessary for speech and occupational therapy services. You are able to call us direct to organise an appointment.
When wanting to start your journey with NSPOT, you can contact our lovely Client Care Team by phone, contact form or email. They will help you with all of your enquiries, and will do their best to find a therapist and appointment time that best suits you and your child’s needs. They will send you important paperwork that needs to be returned prior to the assessment. This paperwork is able to be filled and returned electronically. A text reminder message will be sent before your appointment.
Before your first in-clinic appointment, your therapist will complete a phone call with you to go through your child’s case history, discuss your concerns and identify your child’s strengths and interests. They may also send you questionnaires to complete before the assessment.
When you first come to our clinic, you will be greeted by our lovely Client Care Team who will advise your therapist of your arrival. Your therapist will come and take you the assessment room. The first few moments are all about making sure that your child is happy and relaxed, so that they can participate in the assessment without any problems.
The therapist will then spend some completing the assessment with you and your child. This can look very different depending on your child’s individual skills and needs. Assessments can consist of both structured activities and play-based observation. Sometimes the therapist will need multiple sessions to get a true picture of your child. A typical initial assessment session is 1.5 hours.
At the end of the session, the therapist will give a summary of the results. Home practice ideas and resources will be given so that you can get started on helping your child. The assessment report will take up to 3 weeks to be completed, but therapy sessions generally commence prior to that.
Speech therapy involves the assessment and treatment of communication difficulties.
We can help with:
- Speech / Articulation: Helping your child produce speech sounds clearly so they can be easily understood.
- Expressive Language: Supporting your child in expressing themselves through spoken and written words, sentences, signs, gestures, and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technology.
- Receptive Language: Assisting your child in understanding spoken and written language, and following directions.
- Social Communication: Helping your child navigate social interactions, recognising that everyone communicates differently, and fostering mutual empathy to strengthen connections.
- Fluency (Stuttering): Supporting your child in speaking fluently, with minimal interruptions like repetitions or prolonged sounds.
- Voice: Ensuring your child can speak with appropriate quality, volume, tone, and pitch, while developing an awareness of their voice.
- Feeding: Supporting your child with selective eating habits, helping them become more comfortable with a variety of foods.
Your child may benefit from speech therapy if:
- They are not meeting their developmental milestones (link to blog posts)
- People find it difficult to understand what your child is saying
- They struggle to express themselves
- They have difficulties following instructions
- They have difficulties with learning, reading or writing at school
- They have difficulties participating socially
If this sounds like your child, contact us today to arrange an assessment. If you are not sure whether your child should be assessed, give us a call. We are happy to help with any questions!
We plan and prioritise our therapy goals with you based on the results of your child’s assessment. Sessions aim to support you and your child to achieve these goals through coaching and therapy activities. Activities are often play-based but can be table-based depending on your child’s individual needs. Each session is tailored to your child to create a motivating and engaging environment for learning.
Every child is different and there is no way of predicting how long therapy will take. Your therapist will regularly review your child’s therapist and update their goals as they progress. They may also recommend group programs to help your child to generalise skills learnt in individual therapy. You can further support the rate of progress by completing regular home practice as advised by your therapist.
Occupational therapy aims to help children participate and engage in everyday life by addressing cognitive, physical, sensory, motor and social-emotional developmental difficulties that impact their engagement and participation in daily life.
We use a bottom-up approach as we believe that the foundation of skills need to be established before higher level skills can be developed. By developing a strong foundation generalising skills to functional age-based levels becomes much easier for the child.
Our Occupational therapists supports children and their families when they experience difficulties in the areas outlined below:
- Sensory processing and sensory defensiveness
- Sensory integration
- Gross motor skills
- Fine motor skills
- Social skills
- Play skills
- Executive functioning skills
- Self-regulation and coping strategies
- Mealtime help
- Motor planning
- Visual-motor integration
- Visual perception
- Self-care and toilet training advice
Our Occupational therapists draw upon their extensive training to provide specific, challenging therapeutic activities in the context of play with an aim to facilitate a child’s abilities and skills.
There are a wide range of reasons why a child may benefit from consulting an occupational therapist.
Does your child experience difficulties with day-to-day activities at home, school, or in other settings? Do they have experience challenges that do not affect most typically developing children? If this sounds like your child, an occupational therapist may be able to help.
Our therapists are always available to answer questions on the phone or you can give our friendly receptionists a call to ask questions or to book in an appointment.
Either at NSPOT clinic, or at one of the many schools that we provide services at.
The initial occupational therapy assessment is approximately 1.5 hours. During an assessment, the occupational therapist will examine a child’s:
- Fine and gross motor skills
- Visual motor integration
- Handwriting
- Functional skills i.e. selfcare
- Sensory development
- Social skills
Yes! We love for parents / carers to sit in on the assessment! This makes it a lot easier to understand the specific difficulties that the child is having. If your child accesses school based occupational therapy, we are happy to organise a time where you can attend as well, if it works out with timetabling.
However, there are times that parents cannot sit in, and we do understand that. In these cases, we will explain the results of the assessment when you come in.
If the child’s skills do not meet age expectations, therapy will be recommended.
Early intervention is very important, and the earlier the child starts accessing occupational therapy, the sooner they will finish.
Each child is different and unique which we love! Therapy will be client-centered and will be individualised to target each child’s needs.
Every child is different, and there is no way of predicting how long therapy will take. Rate of progress in therapy depends on: how delayed the child is, how often they attend therapy, their ability to learn, and how often homework is done.
If the child has a disability progress tends to be slower.