Educational Workshops in Norwood, Hingham, & Surrounding Areas
South Shore Therapies gladly provides valuable therapy programs for children and adolescents, but our professional solutions also extend to those who love, support, and care for them. We offer a variety of educational workshops to help create a community that supports children of all needs and abilities. Our educational workshops are available to parents, caregivers, and professionals, ensuring they learn practical strategies to support children’s development. Below, we’ve listed and described each of our workshops to help you choose the ones that fit your needs.
Communication Milestones and Characteristics of Delayed Skills
This presentation will guide listeners through developmental norms from birth through 4 years for prelinguistic, social emotional, expressive and receptive language skills. Learning outcomes from this in-service include becoming familiar with communication developmental norms and possible characteristics that may indicate delayed development of speech and language milestones. Alternative developmental paths of language development will also be explored. This presentation is ideal for parents, caregivers and professional adults who work with young children birth through 4 years of age.
Sensory & Emotional Foundations: The Why Behind Behavior
This presentation will help parents, teachers, and other professionals better understand the underlying reasons why children may experience strong emotional reactions, such as frequent frustration, tantrums, or meltdowns. We will explore specific contexts that can contribute to these experiences and offer practical strategies to support both children and adults in navigating challenging or stressful situations. The focus will be on recognizing each child’s unique needs and strengths, fostering understanding, and promoting positive ways to manage and respond to emotions.
Brain Gym®
In this hands-on experiential workshop, practical movement activities based on the Brain Gym® program will be presented. These exercises will support stress free learning and can be applied to children of various ages and ability. In this overview you will learn: · Six Brain Gym movements which stimulate the brain/body connection · Exercises to enhance your energy, balance, coordination and organization · How to change your stressed-out “survival” brain to “calm-thinking” brain and create confidence to meet any new learning challenge.
Helping Hands: Strategies for Enhancing Fine Motor
This presentation will explore the key foundations of fine motor development and share simple, creative activities that can be easily implemented at home or in the classroom to support these essential skills. Topics will include:
- Building postural strength and control as the foundation for fine motor development
- Understanding hand mechanics for refined movements
- Effective strategies and tools to enhance fine motor skills, helping students gain confidence in fine motor tasks and handwriting.
Feeding Foundations: Building Positive Mealtime Experiences
This interactive discussion will help you better understand why some children may face challenges with eating and offer practical suggestions to make mealtimes more enjoyable and less stressful. We’ll explore the underlying factors that can contribute to eating struggles, such as sensory sensitivities, body awareness, muscle strength, and oral motor skills. This session will deepen your understanding of oral motor development, how sensory processing influences eating, and provide strategies to support children in developing greater confidence and success during mealtime.
Sensory Processing: Exploring How We Experience the World
This interactive overview will help parents, teachers, and other providers recognize sensory processing differences in children and adolescents. We’ll explore common behaviors and challenges, while also highlighting strengths and strategies to support students in feeling more in control of their bodies. Practical tools will be shared to help children navigate daily activities with greater ease and confidence at home, school, and in the community.
Regulation: Skills and Strategies for Success
This overview is designed to help adults working with children understand the various factors that can influence a child’s self-regulation. Attendees will strengthen their observational skills and learn to identify areas where lagging skills may impact the child’s engagement. We’ll explore strategies to support and enhance the child’s abilities, including adjusting interactions, incorporating sensory accommodations and activities, fostering time awareness, and more.
Social Communication: Development and Supports
This overview will help parents and teachers understand social communication development for neurotypical and neurodivergent children who need support to interact with their peers. We will discuss the definition of social language and how it plays a role in our everyday life. In addition, this in-service will help you to •identify strengths and vulnerabilities within a child’s communication skills •clarify the social language assessment process •understand social communication differences as a result of neurodivergence and societal expectations •develop social communication through a strengths-based lens •implement strategies and visual aids to help build and strengthen a child’s social communication, self-advocacy, and perspective taking.
Vision Is More Than 20/20
This is an interactive overview discussing the essential role that vision plays in your child’s daily learning. The importance of ocular motor and binocular skills will be discussed and helpful vision resources will be provided. Attendees will learn about eye dominance and how it directly impacts academic skills such as reading, as well as how it helps you determine the most appropriate seating within the classroom.
Using Visual Supports to Enhance Understanding and Communication
This overview is designed to inform parents, family members and educational professionals about the various types and uses of augmentative communication tools that can be used to increase independent communication and reduce difficult behaviors. We will discuss the reasons for using augmentative supports for kids at all levels and examples of how visual tools can increase a child’s understanding of language, time and changing environments. Specific ideas and examples will be shared for creating low tech home and school made visual supports for use with children at different levels of functioning. We will also review new and popular technologies such as the iPad and how it can be used as a communication tool.
School-Based Services 101
This overview will provide you with an understanding of school-based services. Areas addressed will include: differences between outpatient and school-based services, what are the types of services available in schools, who is a part of the multidisciplinary team and what role does each individual serve, what are an IEP and a 504 plan, how to get started, what questions to ask, what accommodations to advocate for, and what to expect throughout the process. Our children will often make more substantial progress towards their goals with supports in place across multiple settings, whether it be at home, in an outpatient community setting like SST, and within the school system. This presentation will help parents to feel more confident about possible school services available to them and how to best support their child’s needs.
Reach Out to South Shore Therapies to Learn More:
As a parent, caregiver, or professional, you want the best for the child you care for, and South Shore Therapies is proud to be an essential resource. If you are interested in our educational workshops, please contact us for more information.
Explore Educational workshops and Learning Opportunities in Norwood, Hingham and surrounding Areas