Join us for one or two weeks of our School Holiday Summer Intensive Therapy for Children at our Clinic in Lewisham
Week One: Monday 21st July 2025
Week Two: 28th July 2025
CALL TO BOOK
T: 020 3441 6810
E: admin@wholechildtherapy.com
Intensive Therapy Proposal
At Whole Child Therapy (WCT) we often recommend an intensive therapy model. The reason for this is that intensive therapy has a better evidence base. Research suggests that intensive therapy is more effective, and that increased frequency of therapy over a shorter time has a greater impact.
Habits – Making a Change
When a child is experiencing specific sensory difficulties such as an aversion to touch or sound, or a need to move all the time, their responses and behaviours become habituated.
Habits mean that often the resulting behaviour is preconscious thought. Flinching from touch becomes a motor habit and is ingrained in a child’s neurological pathways. This is the same for emotional responses such as ‘meltdowns’ and distress.
To help a child make a change at a neurological level we use an intensive package to lay down new neural pathways. To create a habit, we need to carry out an action over and over again. Shortening the time-frame to intensive bursts means we are focusing a child’s system towards an optimal arousal level with more frequency and intensity.
An optimal arousal state refers to reducing stress responses by giving the body improved ways to receive information from the sensory receptors, while at the same time giving the brain a way to better organise the information it receives.
In therapy, our big aim is to help a child find an optimal state of arousal. In this state, a child is able to learn, explore and develop strategies to help find their optimal arousal more frequently.
In short, intensive therapy supports the creation of new habits for the brain and body so that effort can be made later on to help a child and their family learn ways to find an optimal arousal state at home and school.
Family-Centred Practice
We want families to feel engaged in the process of therapy, as therapy is very much extended to the home and school environment.
Therapy is not effective when it is only achieving change in the clinic. Therapy needs to impact a child in their world and have meaning to the life they live, where they live, in activities that are meaningful to them.
Due to the high level of family involvement required when engaging in a therapy programme, we have found that an intensive therapy package offers a family a period of time with a clear beginning and end. This way, although the demands placed on a family are high, having the end in sight will make the commitment that much easier.
Intensive therapy provides clear goals that are set with children and their families. Parents are offered parent feedback meetings, and training sessions to facilitate therapy extending to home; together, we will be setting goals and reviewing them throughout the programme. We do this so families understand the full process and are able to monitor the success of the therapy.
Setting Goals for Intensive Therapy
Intensive therapy is a foundation intervention used at the beginning of the therapeutic process, and sometimes to consolidate skills later on. It is a burst of input to make enduring change, creating a foundation that will then go on to support other changes that occur across the child’s life.
All goals should be set around the child and their family. It is of no value to a family to set a goal like, ‘we want our child to have improved nystagmus response’. We want a family to set functional goals such as, ‘we want our child to be able to go to a birthday party’, or ‘to be able to sit at the dinner table with us’.
It may be that the goals you have in mind are quite large and not manageable in the time we put aside for therapy. In this instance we will help you set an achievable goal that is a step or process on the journey for your child. We will also help you to work towards achieving the larger goals. Your therapist will guide you on what they feel can be achieved in the intensive block.
As a foundation stage, we expect change to continue to occur following therapy. Most intensive packages are followed by a short break to help the child’s body/brain integrate the changes, to make use of the lessons learnt. A lot of change happens outside of the therapy room, so we always provide a review session several months after an intensive package. Please feel free to contact us requesting this.
Following Intensive Therapy
Following an intensive block of therapy, many children are offered consolidation therapy. This affords a child a less frequent programme of intervention to make change in specific areas, such as handwriting, therapeutic listening, social skills, gross or fine motor skills, eating and drinking, social and emotional development and any other area that is meaningful to a child’s life. These are often offered as individual or group sessions which place less demand on family and school, whilst helping to effect change in a manageable and sustainable way.
Cost Effectiveness
Intensive therapy usually works out to be more cost effective, due to the high level of family and school support offered in the assessment and treatment process. We help families to feel empowered and skilled in meeting their child’s needs. We provide children with better insight into their own needs and a sense of mastery over their goals. In doing this we often reduce the need for ‘ongoing therapy’.
By providing intensive packages, families can see the cost up front. They have a clear idea of what can be achieved and what changes to expect. The process does not extend indefinitely.
The cost of intensive therapy is also less than or similar to that of ongoing weekly therapy. WCT have tailored packages to meet all financial situations. We also work with charities that can offer funding options for families through means testing processes, and we endeavour to meet every child’s needs.
Our packages are not defined by the financial situation of a family, but by the clinical need identified. Both the therapy and management teams work closely with families to create and choose a package that meets the needs of a child but is financially obtainable for a family.
More than Sensory Integration Therapy
At WCT, we use a multi-disciplinary treatment model. This means that we have people from a variety of professional backgrounds treating your child, while creating and developing specialist treatment processes. We are always evolving, researching and working with our leading experts, children and their families.
Play: the Pathway to Joy
We know that a child needs to find meaning in every step of the therapy process. We use play in all of our sessions and focus on a child developing skills that are meaningful to them and that will help them engage in all the roles that make up a wonderful childhood.
The process of therapy is always fun, dynamic and structured around your child and their needs. No matter how difficult the concept of engagement or play is for a child, we will work with them to make the process all about them.
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