Ph: 07 3305 0159

info@squishkids.com.au

Formerly known as Dots Kids. After 10 years, our business has grown up and gained a new identity!
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​We are an experienced team of Occupational Therapists and Therapy Aides. 
We have a range of skills in working with children of various ages and needs and we offer therapy support staff.
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We help children (and their family) with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and Sensory Processing delay, ASD, ADHD, non-specified behavioural difficulties, physical disabilities (dyspraxia; delayed motor development), broad developmental delay and coordination difficulties. Our therapy aims to help children feel more confident in their own bodies, and within the environments in which they play and learn. 

​We also help kids who have no diagnosis and may just be struggling with a specific skill such as dressing, handwriting, ball skills and toileting so they can feel capable and independent.

We aim to help children to improve their independence in everyday life skills (toileting; self-care), emotional regulation, school readiness, coordination, gross motor and fine motor skills, visual perceptual and sensory challenges.
We help the child and their family achieve their goals by providing quality, innovative therapy services and resources.

We offer clinic spaces in Victoria Point and Capalaba and a mobile Occupational Therapy service for children in the Redlands area and South East Brisbane.

​Our clinic includes a gross motor space and sensory room.
We are proud to share our clinic with Play on Words Speech Pathology. We carefully co-ordinate sessions with their Speech Pathologists so that families can visit once for both therapies. 

Squish Kids is an approved NDIS provider (www.NDIS.gov.au) and Early Intervention provider for Children with a Disability - (www.dss.gov.au) Helping children with Autism funding and the Medicare Better Start Initiative and CDM plan.

Squish Kids is pleased to announce a second clinic site. NOW OPEN in Capalaba. 

How therapy can work:

Squish Kids works to make sure that your child is getting the therapy they need, in the environment that best suits them.
That might be the clinic, at home or at school / Kinder / Day Care. 
These sessions are typically one-on-one and 60 minutes long.

​We also offer work with a therapy aide, group sessions as well as Holiday Workshops.
Our Workshops are held in the school holidays and vary each holiday. If you would like to receive information about our workshops, email us and we'll let you know what is coming up. 

​Our workshops include Ready, Set, School (social skills and motor skills); Ready, Set, Safe and Happy (social skills and resilience); Ready, Set, Alphabet (letter formation and sounds).
We are also developing a Picky Eating workshop for children whose food choices are dominated by their sensory needs.

We work with a neurological approach that recognises the developmental hierarchy of learning.​

We will help you to understand where your child is up to and why. And most importantly, how to work with your child at home to compliment therapy time. 

Where are we?
​We are located in Victoria Point. Shop 8, 127-131 Colburn Ave (See map) and Shop 1 / 2 Dollery Rd, Capalaba (shop front faces Old Cleveland Rd: see map)
There is lots of free parking at both sites.
If you want to take a sibling out for the duration of the session, there is a playground (fenced) and Thompson's Beach just around the corner from the Victoria Point clinic and soccer fields / skate park and shops near the Capalaba clinic. 

Using Play as Therapy
​Play is important ‘work’ for children. It enables exploration, imagination and a testing of physical capacities. 
Play may not look therapeutic but it gives children access to the following and more:
Learning.
Play stimulates imagination and creativity. This is particularly important for younger children who use play to learn more about the world around them. 
Physical. 
A therapeutic approach frequently involves physical activity that aims to enhance the sensory system and / or challenge the balance system or awareness in space (proprioception). Additionally, we know that exercise is important for our physical health and mental health as we release endorphins that trigger positive feelings.
Self-expression.
Creative play can facilitate personal expression. Children use role play and imagination to express themselves (emotions, fears and thoughts). It’s their way of practicing communication and interaction with others. These social skills are important building blocks.

A great example of play as therapy: 
If you are familiar with our service, you will have seen the benefits of bouncing on a trampoline for your child.
We commonly use this activity as a starting point for children to help them regulate, ready for therapy. This activity (which just looks like fun) is effective because it provides ‘loaded’ or ‘heavy work’ feedback through the joints of the body. We know that this sensory input has a calming impact on the sensory system and can frequently overwhelm the ‘noise’ of the other (typically unregulated) sensations. It’s usually those other sensations that act as triggers for less favourable behaviours or responses.