Frequently Asked Questions

Talk with your child’s pediatrician. Share the behaviors or delays you’re noticing (communication, social interaction, play skills, or sensory sensitivities). Your pediatrician can complete a developmental screening and help guide next steps to a diagnostic evaluation. 

If concerns continue, your child may be referred for a comprehensive autism evaluation through a developmental pediatrician, psychologist, neurologist, or a qualified diagnostic clinic.

At our center, ABA therapy is play-based, engaging, and individualized.

We focus on your child’s strengths first. We use what they already love (whether that’s bubbles, cars, music, sensory play, or pretend games) to teach new skills in a way that feels natural and fun!

Instead of sitting at a table all day, your child might be:

• Learning communication skills during snack time
• Practicing turn-taking while building with blocks
• Working on independence during play routines
• Developing social skills through guided peer interactions

We follow your child’s motivation and use it to make learning meaningful. Our goal is for therapy to feel like structured play with purpose…not drills!

The number of hours depends on your child’s individual needs.

We look at things like:

• Communication level
• Social skills
• Safety awareness
• Independence
• Learning readiness

Research shows that consistent, frequent practice helps children make meaningful progress, especially in early intervention. We’ll always talk through recommendations with you and make sure the schedule feels realistic and supportive for your family.

Research shows that children often make the most rapid gains when therapy begins between ages 2 and 5. This is when the brain is developing quickly and learning is naturally play-based.

Our ABA program is open to ages 2-8. 

Eligibility is typically determined through a few steps:

1. Developmental or diagnostic evaluation (often a medical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder from a licensed provider).
2. Insurance review to confirm coverage requirements.
3. Comprehensive ABA assessment completed by our Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA).

During our assessment, we look at communication, play skills, social development, behavior patterns, daily living skills, and more. This helps us determine whether ABA is medically necessary and appropriate.

Service intensity (how many hours per week) is based on:

• Your child’s current skill level
• Areas of delay
• Behavioral or safety concerns
• Ability to learn in group vs. 1:1 settings
• Family goals and priorities

Our BCBA completes a comprehensive assessment and develops a treatment plan that outlines recommended hours. We believe in recommending what will create meaningful progress…not more or less than your child truly needs.

We review progress regularly and adjust hours as your child grows and gains skills.

Getting started is simple:

1. Contact our intake team (phone: 248-266-1221 or online form).
2. We’ll verify your insurance benefits. 
3. We’ll send you ABA intake paperwork online.
4. Schedule an in-person initial assessment (about 1-hour).
5. The BCBA will create a personalized treatment plan.
6. The BCBA will review the treatment plan with families before submitting it to the insurance company for authorization of treatment. 
7. Therapy begins!

We know this process can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re navigating a new diagnosis. Our team will walk with you step-by-step and answer every question along the way.

PT gets you moving and OT gets you doing! OTs focus more on everyday activities where PT focuses more on movement and gross motor skills.

A pediatric OT can help children with fine motor skills, sensory processing, self-care skills, feeding challenges, handwriting/school skills, emotional regulation and attention, and play and social participation. Play-based activities are used to help improve these skills.

We work with children from infancy through adolescence.

Signs include:
● trouble holding crayons, pencils, or utensils
● difficulty with buttons, zippers, or tying shoes
● messy or illegible handwriting
● trouble with balance and coordination
● appears clumsy compared to peers
● overly sensitive to touch, sound, movement, or light

● feeding challenges
● trouble with dressing, bathing, brushing teeth
● struggles to focus
● frequent emotional outbursts
● delayed milestones

Contact our office to set-up an appointment. From there, our intake specialist will provide you with information we’ll need from you to get started. You will most likely have to get a referral from your child’s doctor before the first appointment. The first appointment will be an evaluation where we will conduct a caregiver interview, perform standardized assessments, and engage in clinical observations of identified skill deficits. Your therapist will work closely with you to collaborate on goals to target during therapy and let you know the plan of care following the evaluation. Treatment sessions will begin at the next appointment.

A pediatric OT session is play-based, engaging, and client-centered. Even though it looks like fun and games, every activity is carefully designed to help your child develop skills they need for daily life. Most sessions last from 30 minutes to 1 hour 1-2 times per week depending on the therapist’s recommendation. Children usually attend the session on their own to prevent distractions from caregivers being present. Sometimes therapists do have caregivers attend sessions dependent on the child’s age, needs, and education being provided.

Sensory processing is how the brain receives, organizes, and
responds to information from the senses so we can function in everyday activities. It includes touch (tactile), sight (visual), hearing (auditory), taste (gustatory), smell (olfactory), movement (vestibular), and body awareness (proprioception). Children with sensory processing differences have a difficult time responding appropriately to stimuli around them. So they may avoid wearing certain clothes, cover their ears with sounds, refuse to get messy, constantly move, jump, crash, spin, have frequent meltdowns, have a hard time paying attention or sitting still, be unable to transition, or appear slow to respond.

Occupational therapy helps children with sensory processing challenges learn how to manage sensory input so they can feel more comfortable, focused, and successful in everyday activities. Therapy often includes activities like swinging, climbing, jumping, crashing into cushions, or obstacle courses. Strategies are taught to help a child calm down when they are overwhelmed or become alert when they need more input. Sensory diets are also created to use outside of the clinic for further regulation and input.

A sensory diet is a personalized set of activities designed to give a child sensory input their body needs to stay regulated, focused, and calm throughout the day.

Picky eating is a common developmental milestone that many children experience. But for some, it goes beyond that. If your child exhibits any of the following, he/she may benefit from feeding therapy:
● eats fewer than 15-20 foods
● eliminates entire food groups
● gags often when trying new foods

● struggles with chewing or swallowing
● exhibits frequent meltdowns during mealtime
● has difficulty transitioning to solid foods
● pediatrician has concerns about growth and nutrition
● sensitive to textures, smells, or temperatures
● takes longer than 30-40 minutes to eat

Occupational therapy helps children with sensory processing challenges learn how to manage sensory input so they can feel more comfortable, focused, and successful in everyday activities. Therapy often includes activities like swinging, climbing, jumping, crashing into cushions, or obstacle courses. Strategies are taught to help a child calm down when they are overwhelmed or become alert when they need more input. Sensory diets are also created to use outside of the clinic for further regulation and input.

At this time, we do not offer services to assist with breastfeeding. We can help with bottle feeding if you are strictly looking for that.

The ability to understand naturally develops before verbal output. However, if you notice limited to no verbal output in combination with frustration when attempting to communicate, a speech evaluation is highly recommended to determine proper treatment.

Every child has different speech developing rates. At each age range, they begin to master a specific sound. Although the sound does not seem understandable to you, your child may very well be within a developmentally appropriate acquisition of sound age range . For example, your child may say, “wabbit” for “rabbit” or “nana” for “banana”. These sound discrepancies do not always indicate a medically necessary, speech issue. However it is always best to seek a speech evaluation to determine if the sound is age appropriate.

Due to the varying speech development among children and our expectations of verbal output, we do not recommend seeking a speech therapy evaluation until the age of 12 months. With this being said, early intervention is crucial and can catch your child up to speed. Starting speech therapy early can prevent smaller issues from becoming larger challenges later in life. It is never too early to help with development, as speech delays/issues can cause confidence and behavioral problems down the line.

Speech therapy will always assist in reaching your child’s speech goals sooner. It is never harmful to address a speech-related problem sooner rather than later. It is difficult to determine if a child will grow out of their speech issue naturally. We always recommend conducting a comprehensive evaluation to determine the severity and recommended therapy frequency during a critical developmental window that will be more difficult to repair once time has passed.

Speech therapy will inevitably improve your child’s underlying speech issue. However, carryover at home is vital. Applying methodologies and tips your child’s speech provider has given you will expedite their speech development.

No, there are many other speech diagnoses that are unrelated to Autism Spectrum Disorder.