Pediatric rehabilitation

In our Pediatric Outpatient Clinic at Methodist Hospital, our physical, occupational and speech therapists communicate and work together to provide rehabilitation services tailored to your child's unique therapy needs.

Your child does not need to be a patient of Methodist Children's Hospital to receive therapy services. We work with children who are between one month and 21 years old. We also have bilingual therapists, who in addition to English, speak Spanish and French.

We treat children with a wide variety of diagnoses, including, but not limited to:

Physical therapists help children improve their functional mobility to better perform activities of daily living and participate in recreational sports. We accomplish this by working with your child in a fun, playful environment, focusing on you and your child's goals to achieve his or her highest level of functional independence.

Physical therapy can be used for:

• Achieving developmental milestones, such as rolling, sitting, crawling and standing
• Remediating birth abnormalities, such as Torticollis or Clubfoot
• Improving walking/running patterns or difficulty in performing tasks due to weak foot musculature or orthotics prohibiting proper gait mechanics
• Muscular strengthening, stretching and implementation of home exercise programs
• Improving balance and coordination
• Providing education on the use of wheelchairs, walkers and orthotics as well as recommending orthotics for your child
• Recovering from sports/orthopedic injuries
• Postsurgical rehabilitation

Whether it's helping your child with balance or range of motion, our physical therapists can help your child improve mobility and achieve his or her maximum level of function.

A child's primary occupation is to play. In addition to playing, other occupations include learning, becoming independent with self-care activities and participating in social and family life.

An occupational therapist works with your child to develop skills in the areas that are challenging for him or her to succeed in daily activities. Your pediatric occupational therapist will create individual treatment sessions based on goals you agree best target the results your child needs.

Some of the areas in which pediatric occupational therapist can help your child develop and grow are:

• Fine motor coordination and manual dexterity, including handwriting based on the Handwriting Without Tears program
• Visual-motor and perceptual skills
• Neurodevelopmental skills
• Upper extremity rehabilitation after injury, including kinesio taping and splinting
• Sensory-motor processing, integration and modulation
• Self-care activities, such as bathing, grooming, dressing and toileting
• Age-appropriate behavior, social skills and play strategies

Occupational therapists also educate and train parents and caregivers on the best strategies to help their children continue to experience the benefits of therapy at home.

Pediatric speech-language pathologists are clinicians who evaluate and treat disorders in communication, feeding, swallowing, fluency, voice and cognition. These disorders can result from neurological/neurodevelopmental disorders, acquired or birth disorders, craniofacial anomalies and/or hearing impairment.

Our clinicians implement a variety of standardized assessments combined with informal observations to evaluate the nature and extent of impairment. We then develop customized treatment plans specific to each child's needs based on age and ability.

Our speech therapists provide highly specialized treatment to safely address feeding aversions and swallowing impairments. They also employ a variety of treatment strategies including functional, play-based approaches that are both age-appropriate and fun for your child. Parents and caregivers are provided with family education to implement therapeutic strategies at home.

Our speech pathologists work to achieve the following goals:

• Improve receptive and expressive language skills
• Promote socialization with family, peers and teachers
• Encourage appropriate expression of feelings, such as frustration, fear, happiness and anger
• Facilitate play skills
• Improve production of sounds so your child can be understood
• Strengthen oral motor skills for speech, eating and swallowing
• Provide home programs for improving speech, language, feeding and swallowing
• Foster independence with communication
• Assist with argumentative communication devices to facilitate ease of communication

The benefits of speech therapy go beyond improving communication skills. We can help your child lessen behavioral issues stemming from frustration with the inability to express feelings, engage and play more appropriately with friends and strengthen socialization to improve peer and family relationships.

To get your child started with speech, physical or occupational therapy, you must obtain a referral from your pediatrician. Most physicians in the San Antonio area are familiar with the clinic through their association with the Methodist Healthcare system.

Once we receive your referral, we will verify insurance coverage and call you to schedule your child's first visit. To confirm insurance coverage, please call (210) 575-7501.