Building Blocks Blog

For individuals on the autism spectrum, developing the skills that are required to participate in everyday activities, such as, washing and personal hygiene can be more challenging compared to those without a diagnosis. The reasons for this are varied and will depend on the individual. An Occupational Therapist can assist families to explore these reasons, and develop tailored intervention plans … Read More

Children are referred to Paediatric Occupational Therapists (OTs) when they need assistance to develop confidence and independence in particular roles and skills in their life.    Each child is unique, as is the family and community context that they are part of.  In order to understand your child and family, and where your child may need assistance, your OT will … Read More

HELPING CHILDREN WITH SEPARATION WORRIES 10 Practical Strategies As most of you will know children experience a huge range of emotions. As adults we love seeing kids happy and excited and we don’t mind watching them be silly or cheeky either but what we do find extremely difficult is seeing kids distressed, worried, anxious, sad, angry, scared and/or upset. We … Read More

What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is “a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.”   Why is it important to incorporate Mindfulness into our day? Mindfulness improves attention, memory processing and decision making Mindfulness increases our self-awareness, social awareness and self-confidence … Read More

Now that it’s starting to warm up outside, what better time than to get the whole family outdoors! Here at Building Blocks Therapy, we are big believers in putting down the iPad, putting on some runners and getting moving! There are so many things that you can do outside – the options are endless! Here are our top 10 fun … Read More

Does this picture look familiar? I can imagine most parents will be nodding their head whilst reading this. Its 8.30am on a Monday morning, school begins at 9am. Your child has 20 minutes to get themselves organised before you all make your way to school. Its now 8.45am and your child still isn’t ready. You are wondering what they have … Read More

Handwriting is a skill that will be carried with a child from the start of schooling right through to adulthood. However, motivating a child to practice their writing, to develop correct letter formation, size and spacing can be challenging. Here are ten easy ways to freshen up handwriting practice so children don’t feel like they are ‘writing lines’, as would … Read More

Importance of Play in relation to classroom learning: Play is anything that we do for fun! This could be dress ups, turn taking games, pretend play, constructive play, social play, games with rules etc. Once we start having to work and it is no longer fun, it is no longer play. For children (including babies) play is academic, it is … Read More

What is attention? Paying attention seems like such a simple process – we just do it! But there is much more to it than we think. Every day we use attention skills to assist us in selecting and focusing on tasks. We then use concentration skills to sustain our attention to that specific task. Using these skills allows us to … Read More

What is the Zones of Regulation? Zones of regulations is a social thinking and social skills curriculum that helps children to achieve an optimal state of alertness for the activity that they are partaking in. The Zones concept helps children to categorise their emotions into four coloured categories (blue, green, yellow and red), this helps to open a channel of … Read More