Announcements & Training - Sensory Connections - Providing innovative therapy services for children and families

Learning Tree Therapy Centre Formed.

Sensory Connections Staff have formally joined with colleagues from the field of Child Psychology and Speech and Language Therapy to form the Learning Tree Therapy Centre (LTTC). We are pleased to be able to announce that LTTC has successfully been approved as a service provider for the FaCSIA Helping Children with Autism Panel Early Intervention Panel. We will be continuing to provide some services at our Floreat Location but will additionally be co locating shortly with our colleagues to be able to provide extended integrated therapy services in both individual and group formats for children with a range of needs and challenges including those who are diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorders, other disorders of relating and communicating, experience developmental delays, sensory and regulatory and processing challenges and other special needs or mental health conditions.

Click here to download the - Learning Tree Therapy Brochure

Events: DIR® / Floortime™ Trainings for Professionals.

Following our very successful regional trainings in August 2008, Sensory Connections is planning more introductory and extended introductory trainings during 2009. Please stay tuned for more information and make sure that you have registered your details in the registration form below if you are interested in these events.

How will participating in DIR® / Floortime™ training benefit you as a professional?

" I have been working as a paediatric Speech Pathologist now for over 25 years and more recently in the field of autism but I also still have a general caseload. In the last year or so I have been introduced to the DIR® model and it has "rejuvenated" me professionally. Obviously it can be exciting with any professional development to get new ideas and strategies, but DIR® has been bigger than that. Initially I thought it was just an interaction model (a little like Hanen) with many strategies I was already doing but maybe I just needed to fine-tune my use of it, particularly as it incorporates input from so many disciplines. How wrong I was! The more I learn - the more I am challenged but the more exciting it becomes! It is giving me a really solid framework for enmeshing all aspects of language and for working with parents. I have seen so much change in the children and parents I work with and in myself!. I would highly recommend the training course - it can make a huge difference to your clinical practice." Speech and Language Pathologist.

" Stanley Greenspan's DIR® model provides a conceptual framework which has added a rich and valuable dimension to clinical work with children. DIR® provides a developmental model for assessment and intervention, with strong foundational underpinnings in psychodynamic, child development and relational psychologies. The model is like a bridge between theory and clinical practice, and DIR® training offers the opportunities to see the model in practice, learn how to assess a child's functional emotional capacities, and then how therapists, families and the school environment can support the child strengthen these capacities." Clinical Psychologist.

" As a paediatric occupational therapist with approximately 15 years experience and as a parent of a child who is on the autistic spectrum who is receiving DIR® based OT services with Sensory Connections, I am absolutely amazed at what can be achieved with this approach. I believe it to be an extremely powerful model and would consider this training to be immensely valuable for parents, allied health staff, clinical pyschologists and educators. I strongly believe that it can make THE difference to a whole child's life." Occupational Therapist and Parent.

Events: DIR® / Floortime™ Approach for Parents

Facilitated by Kathy Walmsley

Co Facilitator Yvonne Buters, with support from SCOTS staff and colleagues.