The services and treatments we have for children include the following:
Childhood Abdominal Pain. (also known as Recurrent Abdominal Pain, or RAP; the child may call it Tummy Ache). This is when the child has pain in his/her stomach, but medical causes have been ruled out; medical tests are often done before this diagnosis. A biofeedback methodology is used to train children to relax, using animation and movies to motivate the child. The skills learned in biofeedback are usually utilized throughout the child’s life.
Pediatric Migraines. A surprising number of children experience migraines, and this increases in probability as the child matures. The child should be trained in self-management techniques before this becomes a more chronic condition (which may lead to the need for drug interventions. Biofeedback and other self-management techniques can be effective in helping the child to control various aspects of his/her own physiology; resulting in a reduction of headaches/migraines.
Attention Deficit Disorder. Being very distractible and hyperactive can be very inconvenient for parents and teachers. It is often advisable to have a thorough neuropsychological evaluation in order to assess the degree to which there are any of the following: Learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, depression, anxiety, brain injury, behavioral and emotional problems, level of intelligence, and achievement in major areas of academic functioning.
Learning Disabilities. It may sound surprising that 15% of the population are learning disabled. This means that some learning function —usually reading— is significantly below what the person’s overall intelligence level is. There can be other learning disabilities besides reading, however. One that is frequently mentioned is a Nonverbal Learning Disability. This can mean a few things (or all of them): Poor mathematical ability, particularly with word problems; poor fine motor coordination, such as very bad handwriting; poor social skills, so that the child has very few friends and cannot seem to start or keep friends. There can also be very focused learning problems such as only problems with math, or writing, or social skills.
Neuropsychological Evaluations. For more information about neuropsychological evaluations for children, click here.
© 2003-2010 Lawrence Thomas