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TOMS RIVER, New Jersey, September 19, 2007--- For 4-year-old Nikolas Rohena, it’s all about  the swing.
The Toms River preschooler, a twin who was diagnosed with autism at age 2, visits Community Medical Center’s Child Therapy Room weekly, where he climbs into a bright yellow hammock swing that distracts him during his occupational therapy session.
“Our outpatient pediatric occupational therapy service adds therapeutic fun into the program to motivate the child to practice essential skills through play,” says Nikolas’s occupational therapist Sherry Dohn. “As we swing, he’s in a calm state, which makes it easier to engage him in the functional tasks we need to do as a part of his therapy.”
Occupational therapy promotes functional independence for children affected by illness, injury, birth anomalies, disability or developmental delays. Earlier this year, Community Medical Center expanded their outpatient pediatric occupational therapy services for children and adolescents.
The services include a new child therapy room equipped with swings, balls, barrels, bolsters, games, and a variety of treatment activities. The comprehensive program is designed to help children and adolescents gain or regain independence at home, school and in their surrounding environments by improving sensory integration and fine, perceptual and visual motor skills.
For Nikolas’s mother, Lori Rohena, the program supplements the occupational, physical and speech therapy he gets during the school year through the Preschool Program of the Toms River School System. Noting that she has been bringing him here since May, she says the program has given him the extra help that she believes has allowed him to make more progress.
“Sherry’s excellent, and Nikolas relates well to her,” she says. “She’s very good at working with him.”
Rohena adds that she wanted to share her son’s story because she feels many parents of children with autism or other disabling conditions don’t realize that the service is available right here in their own community — a belief that Dohn shares.
“People don’t realize we offer this service to the community, and there are such long waiting lists for the few facilities that do offer this care,” she says.
The pediatric occupational therapists are specialty trained to work with children with a host of conditions, which in addition to autism include learning disabilities and development delays, pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), Asperger’s syndrome, Down’s syndrome, sensory-motor/sensory processing difficulties and fine motor deficits. Dohn, who has worked with the Early Intervention Program and has 12 years experience working with children, notes that additional home education and parent training are also integral parts of the therapy.
“The pediatric therapy staff at CMC — all of whom are very experienced in working with children — believes that the family-centered, child-guided approach is the key to success in therapy,” she says, adding that treatments are tailored to each child following an initial evaluation.
Dohn says almost all insurance plans are accepted by Community’s outpatient pediatric occupational therapy service, but adds that a physician referral is required for the program. To learn more, call Community Medical Center outpatient rehabilitation services at 732-557-8046.
Contact: Kathleen Horan
Public Relations and Marketing
(732) 557-3909
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