Children: Developmental
Children’s Developmental Support Program Building Skills, Nurturing Growth, Supporting Every Step
Program Vision
The Children’s Developmental Support Program is designed to assist young learners who face developmental delays or difficulties across various domains including language development, social-emotional maturity, sensory processing, and daily life skills. This program empowers children through occupational therapy strategies combined with cognitive tools, promoting steady progress in a nurturing, supportive environment.
Program Overview
Every child develops at their own pace. However, some children benefit from additional support to reach key developmental milestones. This program takes a holistic, strength-based approach to identify gaps in development and implement engaging, evidence-based interventions. It emphasizes the integration of body, brain, and behaviour through activities that are fun, functional, and rooted in real-life contexts. The program supports foundational skills required for everyday functioning, school readiness, and healthy social relationships – providing children with the tools they need to thrive.
Our program draws from a range of clinically validated approaches widely used in pediatric occupational therapy for autism, including:
To help children process and respond more effectively to sensory input (visual and auditory) reducing overwhelm and improving self-regulation.
A relationship-based model that builds emotional connection and developmental progress through activities and play.
A structured framework that teaches children to identify their emotional states and use strategies to manage feelings and behavior.
Visual narratives that help children understand social situations and expected behaviors, reducing anxiety and promoting appropriate social responses.
Uses clear visual supports to increase independence through predictable routines.
Breaking down skills into smaller steps to provide support for building mastery and autonomy.
Cognitive Tools Integrated into the Program
To complement these occupational therapy practices, we have developed and curated a suite of cognitive tools that strengthen attention, working memory, planning, emotional self-awareness, and flexibility. These include:
Children may show signs of developmental delays for various reasons, such as neurological differences, premature birth, sensory sensitivities, or limited early stimulation. This program responds to common developmental challenges:
Some children are late to speak or have difficulty understanding and following instructions. These challenges can limit their ability to communicate needs, participate in routines, or engage with others.
How We Address It:
We enhance receptive communication through a layered approach that combines audio, visual, and sensory strategies to make language more accessible and meaningful.
We use clear audio instructions to help children process language more easily. These are delivered via recorded prompts, allowing children to hear and internalize words and phrases through consistent repetition and tone variation.
Complex tasks are broken into simple, sequential steps, each supported with both audio and visual instructions. Example: drag the visuals of washing hands into the correct sequence. This approach allows children to process one instruction at a time, promoting success and reducing frustration.
Short attention spans or difficulty shifting between tasks can disrupt learning, play, and everyday routines. These challenges are common among children on the autism spectrum and can affect everything from completing an activity to transitioning between environments.
We use structured, child-friendly cognitive tools and a multi-sensory approach to help children build attention control and maintain task engagement.
We provide children with clear visual sequences of what is happening now, next, and later. This reduces cognitive overload and supports sustained attention by giving them a visual anchor.
Our program includes audio instructions to signal the start of an activity.
We design tasks that are brief and highly structured, allowing children to experience success without becoming overwhelmed. Activities build gradually in complexity, helping children practice attention stamina over time.
Children can check results immediately upon concluding tasks, supporting their ability to persist with a task until completion.
Children may avoid social interaction, struggle with taking turns, find it difficult to share, or have trouble expressing and managing emotions. These delays can affect classroom behaviour, friendships, and their overall sense of security.
We nurture social and emotional development through a combination of emotional literacy tools, structured cooperative play activities and visual supports, that are tailored to each child's developmental stage and sensory needs.
We use emotion activities. These visuals give them a concrete way to understand abstract emotional states (example: happy, frustrated, overwhelmed), which is the first step toward emotional regulation.
Rather than expecting spontaneous social engagement, we set up scaffolded play scenarios that teach sharing, waiting, and taking turns. For example, scenarios to teach turn-taking.
Children may be over-responsive or under-responsive. These sensory sensitivities can interfere with learning, play, and communication.
We help children learn to identify appropriate responses to sensory overload and frustration. We support children in recognizing their sensory states and building appropriate responses. Through this process, we help them develop self-regulation skills. With repeated practice, children learn how to respond to challenges with greater confidence and control.
Difficulties with dressing, toileting, or feeding can impact a child’s confidence, autonomy, and participation in daily life. These tasks require coordination, sequencing, and sensory awareness—areas that may be challenging for children with autism.
We guide children toward mastering age-appropriate self-care routines through step-by-step visual supports and repetition in familiar contexts. Activities are broken into manageable stages using picture schedules, social scenarios, and guided practice. We incorporate positive reinforcement to build independence and confidence. Over time, children develop the ability to perform these routines with greater ease and reduced support, empowering them in everyday environments such as home, school, and the community.
Child-Friendly Modality for Non-Readers
Every activity in the Children’s Support Program is designed to be fully accessible to children who cannot yet read. We use audio instructions and clear visual cues across all learning tasks to ensure that children can understand and engage independently. Each step is supported by spoken guidance, pictorial representations, and interactive visuals that help children follow along without needing to decode written text. Whether a child is building social-emotional skills, practicing self-care routines, or engaging in sensory or communication tasks, they are guided through multi-sensory input—seeing, hearing, and doing—so they can access learning in the way that works best for them. This approach not only removes reading as a barrier but also supports cognitive processing, language development, and task confidence in a developmentally appropriate, engaging way.
Communication is foundational for learning and connection. This area supports both understanding and development of vocabulary for expressive purposes.
Focus Areas:
Outcome: Children will build verbal confidence and improve their ability to express needs, follow instructions, and connect with others.
Cognitive skills help children think, remember, and pay attention. These are necessary for problem-solving, learning routines, and academic success.
Tools Used:
Outcome: Children improve their thinking, planning, memory, and ability to concentrate during learning and play.
Children who struggle with sensory input may avoid or seek certain sensations. This domain helps children tolerate and organize sensory experiences.
Outcome: Children respond better to stimulation, and learn to adapt to different environments.
Strong social-emotional development allows children to build relationships, understand feelings, and cope with frustration.
Outcome: Children will relate better to others, manage emotions more appropriately, and engage positively in group environments.
Independence begins with daily routines. We help children gain confidence in self-help and age-appropriate tasks.
Skills Taught:
Outcome: Children build autonomy in their everyday routines, increasing readiness for preschool or school life.
Program Format
Goals and activities are tailored to the child's unique developmental profile.
We use auditory, games, scenarios, and art to support learning in a joyful, engaging way.
Parents receive tips, visuals, and activities to reinforce progress at home.
Parents can embed activities into snack time, clean-up and dressing to support real-world transfer.
Ideal For
Program Outcomes
After completing or participating in the Children’s Developmental Support Program, children will:
Conclusion
All children deserve support that matches their pace, honors their uniqueness, and opens the door to growth. The Children’s Developmental Support Program combines the power of occupational therapy with cognitive strategies to build developmental bridges across all areas of childhood.
With the right tools, playful structure, and patient encouragement, every child can take steps forward toward more confidence, more connection, and more possibility.
