PlayGrow OT manages 5 data types including appointments. Helps you organize, track, and share your work in 1 place for teams and solo users.

Do we need a diagnosis before starting OT?

No. A formal autism diagnosis is never required to begin occupational therapy. Many families start OT while waiting for an evaluation, or because they've noticed their child is struggling and simply want support. We meet your child where they are today and build from there. If you do have a diagnosis or evaluation report, we'll use it to inform our plan, and if you're in the process of seeking one, we can share observations that may support that conversation with your pediatrician.

How is OT different from ABA and speech therapy?

They're complementary, and each supports a different part of a child's development. ABA typically focuses on behavior and learning through structured reinforcement. Speech therapy focuses on communication, language, and oral-motor skills. Occupational therapy focuses on the doing of everyday life, sensory regulation, motor skills, self-care, play, and participation. An OT doesn't try to change who a child is; we help them feel regulated and capable enough to take part in the things that matter to them. Many autistic kids benefit from more than one of these at once, and we work well alongside the others.

Can you coordinate with my child's school?

Yes, with your permission. Cheryl can help you share helpful strategies with your child's teacher and contribute to accommodations or goals within a 504 plan or IEP. We focus on consistency, the same regulation tools, sensory supports, and self-care strategies following your child from the therapy room into the school day. We never replace your school team; we add to it, so the adults around your child are all pulling in the same direction.

Autism Support

Occupational Therapy for Autistic Children

Autism isn't something to fix, and your child isn't broken. The goal here isn't to make an autistic child "look" less autistic. It's to support the things that make daily life harder than it needs to be, regulation, routines, independence, and connection, so your child can take part in their world on their own terms. Pediatric occupational therapy for autistic children in Nassau County, built around strengths.

How OT Supports Autistic Kids

Occupational therapy is about helping a child take part in the everyday activities that make up a good life. For autistic children, that often comes down to four areas where OT can make a real difference.

Sensory regulation

Many autistic children experience the world more intensely than others, bright lights, loud sounds, itchy tags, or unexpected touch can be genuinely overwhelming. We help your child understand their own sensory profile and build strategies, movement breaks, noise options, weighted input, or quiet tools, that let them feel regulated instead of flooded. This is the heart of our Sensory Processing Therapy work.

Daily living skills

Dressing, mealtimes, brushing teeth, getting out the door. These can be the hardest parts of an autistic child's day, and the most stressful for the whole family. We break routines into manageable steps, add visual supports, and adapt the environment so independence grows. The aim isn't to force a child to do things the "typical" way, it's to give them a way that works for them.

Motor skills

Many autistic children have differences in motor planning, coordination, or fine motor control. We build strength, coordination, and body awareness through play, which makes handwriting, using utensils, buttons, and scissors, and joining in on the playground more accessible and less frustrating.

Play and connection

Play is how every child learns, and autistic children are no exception. We support flexible, joyful play, whether that means joining your child's interests, expanding how they use toys, or helping them feel comfortable playing alongside peers. We never treat a child's preferred play as "wrong," we build from it.

Our Strengths-Based Philosophy

We start from what your child can do, not from a checklist of what they can't. Every autistic child has strengths, deep interests, sharp pattern recognition, honesty, focus, a unique way of seeing the world, and those strengths aren't obstacles to work around. They're the foundation we build on.

That shows up in how we set goals. We don't write goals about making your child "indistinguishable from peers" or suppressing their natural way of being. We write goals about comfort, independence, and participation. Can your child get dressed with less distress? Join a family dinner without overwhelm? Tell you, in whatever way works for them, when something is too much? Those are the wins that matter, and they're meaningful whether or not they look "typical."

We use neurodiversity-affirming language and practices. That means we respect stimming as self-regulation, we honor your child's yes and no, we don't use compliance-based or coercive approaches, and we assume competence. Your child is the expert on their own experience, and our job is to support it, not reshape it.

Working Alongside Your Child's Team

Your child likely has more than one person in their corner, and that's a good thing. We see ourselves as one part of a team that includes you, your child's speech-language pathologist, their teacher and school team, and any other providers. Good therapy doesn't happen in a silo.

Speech therapy and OT complement each other naturally: speech focuses on communication and language, while OT focuses on regulation and the doing of daily life. A regulated child has an easier time using the communication tools their speech therapist is building. With your permission, we can share goals and strategies across providers so the work reinforces rather than overlaps.

For school-age children, we can also help bridge the gap to the classroom, contributing to a 504 plan or IEP and making sure sensory supports and self-care strategies show up consistently between home and school.

Partnering With Parents

You know your child better than anyone, and you spend more hours with them than we ever will. So therapy only works if it reaches your living room. We coach you in real time, during sessions and between them, so the strategies that help your child regulate, transition, and get through hard moments are ones you can actually use at home.

That includes understanding what's driving a behavior before you respond, building sensory-friendly routines into your day, and knowing when to push gently and when to back off. For many families this blends naturally with our Parent Coaching support, which goes deeper into home strategies and the emotional side of parenting an autistic child.

Frequently Asked Questions

Every child deserves support that starts from their strengths.

Book a free 15-minute consult and tell us about your child, what they love, what's hard, and what you're hoping for. Cheryl will help you see what neurodiversity-affirming OT can look like for your family.

Request a Free Consult

This page is for general education and isn't a substitute for an individualized evaluation or medical advice.