Occupational therapy for children
Clever Bees provides mobile paediatric occupational therapy services tailored to meet the individual needs of your child and support them in reaching their goals. Our team of OTs provide targeted, individualised therapies to clients in their homes, schools or in community settings across the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens, and Hunter regions.
The mobile nature of Clever Bees means we are agile, responsive, and focused on delivering therapy when and where your child needs it.
For those wishing to engage in services in a clinic, we provide services from our Port Stephens Clinic located within Central Health Alliance, co-located with A Growing Understanding Speech Pathology. We provide individual and group-based services for children and young people from our clinic, as well as workshops and training events.
We offer online appointments, as well as an outreach service to the Central West of NSW, so our quality services are available to all families across NSW and Australia.
How occupational therapy can assist your child
Under the leadership of Steff Bee, Clever Bees has extensive experience assessing and treating children and young people facing a range of challenges.
Clever Bees support children with motor skill difficulties, developmental delays and disabilities, behavioural difficulties, Autism Spectrum Disorders, learning difficulties, mental health conditions, neurological conditions, physical and intellectual disabilities.
Play skills
Involves the physical attributes applicable to play, such as throwing, catching and kicking a ball and using puzzles, as well as the imaginative, social and communication requirements.
Gross motor skills
Manipulating and controlling the large muscles of the body that are important for body movement such as sitting, walking, jumping, and throwing a ball.
Self-care skills
This area focuses upon actions such as independent dressing and toileting, tying shoelaces, fastening buttons, and using a knife and fork to eat.
School readiness
Drawing, cutting, on-task classroom behaviour, task completion, following instructions and craft skills are all generally expected skills ahead of starting school.
Visual perception
Visual perception, or understanding what you can see, is important in completing many activities, such as reading a story, completing a puzzle, identifying letters and numbers, copying and writing.
Handwriting
A child must have sufficient manual dexterity, fine motor coordination and visual motor skills for handwriting. Areas such as letter formation, reversals, speed, legibility, pencil grip, reducing pain and/or fatigue may be addressed.
Sensory processing
The body processes and reacts to the information it receives from the surrounding environment. Children may demonstrate over or under sensitivity to loud noises or certain items of clothing, sensation-seeking behaviour, or difficulty maintaining a calm state.
Fine motor skills
Coordinating small muscles such as in the hand to hold and manipulate toys and tools such as a pencil or spoon. Fine motor skills are important for activities such as handwriting, dressing, feeding, and using scissors, and usually develop in cooperation with visual and spatial awareness.
Social & Emotional Development
Children need to develop their emotional intelligence in order to make meaningful friendships and cope with day to day life. Therapy includes identifying and managing feelings, building resilience, developing self-regulation skills, and social understanding/social interaction skills.
Online appointments
Our team offers online appointments for occupational therapy for children and behaviour support. By providing online appointments and the use of Telehealth technology we are offering more choices for families who require access to our services. We’re delivering greater flexibility, reducing travel costs and improved convenience.
Our Telehealth platform
Face-to-face care with Coviu
At Clever Bees, we use the Australian-developed Telehealth platform Coviu. It is completely secure and encrypted and does not store any of your private information outside of the actual session. It is recommended to access Coviu using Google Chrome on a computer with a camera and microphone. However, you can access Coviu from any device, using any web browser, or via the Coviu app.
