Together OT: Group Occupational Therapy

Summer is just around the corner!

Together OT will be offering handwriting programming beginning the week of July 6 until the week of August 24th.

Is your kiddos hand writing tricky to read?
Do they have a hard time getting their ideas onto paper?
Does their hand hurt when they write?
Is writing a slow, tedious activity?

Let's work together to make hand writing fun again! Sessions will run weekly for 45 mins, a homework idea will go home with your kiddo to work on until the following week, and we will compare where we start and how we finish 🎉

Each session is $125. Sessions are eligible for private insurance coverage. Monday and Tuesday times available. Email [email protected] if interested or for more information!

Autism Ontario's One-to-One Summer Support Worker funding *closes May 31, 2026*

The One-to-One Summer Support Worker Reimbursement Fund is available to Ontario families of autistic children or youth who retain the services of a one-to-one worker to accompany their child to a camp or program or out on community outings.

Maximum reimbursements of $600, per child or youth, (up to 18th birthday) will be made to subsidize services between July and August.

A minimum of 500 children from across Ontario are expected to receive reimbursement. Reimbursement will be provided based on a random selection made from all eligible applicants who apply.

Find more information here: autismontario.com/camp

Together OT does not provide summer camp however there are summer programming options available. Keep an eye out for more information!

At Together OT, we believe that caring for caregivers is an essential part of supporting our community. We also recognize that the realities of daily life - and access to funding - can make it difficult to prioritize your own health and well-being. This offering is a small step toward creating more space for that care.

A few details about the class:

Tuesday, June 16, 2026 - 7:00 to 8:00 pm at 190 Wortley Road, LL5 (Together OT)

🌈 the session will be led by a local yoga practitioner focusing on rest and relaxation (Yin yoga).
🌈 each class will be limited to up to 10 participants to support a calm, restorative environment.
🌈 at this time, childcare will NOT be available during the sessions.
🌈 there will be no cost for these classes. The class is FREE
🌈 your child does not need to have previous or current sessions with Together OT for a caregiver to attend.
🌈 please bring your own yoga mat (if you have, there will be extras if needed)

email [email protected] with any questions

Imagine you're planning to make lasagna for supper, or something similarly complicated. You go to the store and buy all the ingredients, take the meat out of the freezer, and then you go to work.

But then work didn't go the way you expected. You were short-staffed, you spent all day on your feet, a coworker was rude to you, and you didn't have time to eat your lunch. When you get home, you're exhausted and starving. You now can't imagine spending an hour making lasagna and then cleaning up afterward. So.. you ACCOMMODATE yourself and order a pizza.

You didn't forget how to make lasagna. You still have all the ingredients for lasagna. You can make lasagna tomorrow. You might even technically WANT to make lasagna. You just don't have the capacity for it right now.

But you aren't lazy for not making lasagna. Nobody tells you that you are being manipulative or that you just need more discipline because you decided to order pizza. Adults extend themselves grace for exactly this kind of capacity shift all the time.

People's abilities don't have one steady baseline. They shift and change constantly, on multiple overlapping timescales, and the pattern is different for everyone.

This is called fluctuating capacity.

For some people, fluctuating capacity means they might handle a complex task one day and then struggle with basic self-care the next, or move between different levels of functioning within the same day, the same hour, even the same conversation.

Within a single day, capacity rises and falls based on accumulated demands, sensory input, food, hydration, transitions, and how much masking or effort someone has already done.

Day to day, sleep quality, what happened the day before, whether they are feeling well, where they are in their cycle, if applicable, and lingering effects from a big event can all change what is available.

Capacity depends on factors like sleep, sensory load, accumulated demands, illness, hormonal cycles, emotional state, environment, and how much the person has already had to mask or push through that day.

In kids, fluctuating capacity often looks like a child who can do something one moment and genuinely cannot do that same thing a short time later. The skill hasn't disappeared, but their access to it has.

A child who had a great Monday can be wiped out on Tuesday from the cost of that good day.

For kids, this could show up in various ways

✱ A kid who can write a full paragraph on Monday stares at a blank page on Wednesday and cannot get a single sentence out.

✱ A child who normally tolerates the tag in their shirt but then suddenly cannot bear it. Sensory thresholds can shift with capacity.

✱ A child who sometimes handles self-care tasks like brushing teeth, getting dressed, putting on shoes, but other times doesn't

✱ Language can also come and go. A kid who chats freely in the morning might give one-word answers by afternoon

These are all situations that involve the same kid, same skill, but different available capacity. Just like in the lasagna analogy.

When capacity fluctuates, you might notice skills requiring executive function, planning, sequencing, starting tasks, switching activities, are often times the first to go. Or, you might see emotional regulation drops, like crying or becoming frustrated more easily/quickly.

When adults don't recognize what's going on, this might feel confusing or frustrating. They might think the child is being lazy, or manipulative, or attention-seeking, or maybe it's a regression, or a behavior problem, or they're simply choosing not to what you want or expect.

But, it's none of those things.

They're still just a child doing the best they can with what they have in the moment, but in this moment, their nervous system has less to give, so skills are going offline.

We can't treat kids' best moments as their baseline. That is actually the ceiling, and the ceiling moves.

Today's plan for group programming ended up morphing into a client-led Super Mario Kart challenge!

There were:
🍄 Scooter Karts (bilateral movements in prone and seated - helping to build core strength, integrate primitive reflexes, give lots of proprioceptive and vestibular input)
🍄 Hand made power ups (fine motor skill building through scissor use, detail oriented drawings and creative planning)
🍄 Collecting power up items that were hidden around the room (visual motor integration, visual scanning)
🍄 Team work (social interactions that included compromises, wins/losses, shared planning...)
🍄 Creative ways to include people who weren't directly participating - "3, 2, 1, Go!"

Slowly we are finishing hanging things on the walls at "Burrow" (this is now the nickname of Together OT's clinic space). One of my favourite walls right now is our scooter storage! They are so pretty hanging up together like a rainbow 🌈 Plus the classic scooter board is a powerful tool in an occupational therapy clinic. It's not just about having fun, it's a full-body workout that provides therapeutic benefits.

One of the biggest benefits of the scooter board is how it promotes bilateral movement (two sides of the body at once). Whether a child is using both hands to pull themselves along a rope, or alternating their arms to swim across the floor, they are engaging both sides of their brain and body simultaneously. This bilateral coordination is essential for many things we enjoy daily like running, biking, tying shoes, writing, honestly the list is too long I feel like I could go on forever!

Here are some of the other amazing therapeutic benefits of scooter board play:
🌟 Core & Upper Body Strength - Propelling the board requires significant co-contraction of the core muscles and upper extremity strength.
🌟 Vestibular Input - Moving the scooter board provides crucial information to the brain about balance and spatial orientation, helping kids process sensory input in a manageable and controlled way.
🌟 Proprioceptive Input (Heavy Work) - Pushing and pulling against resistance provides deep pressure to the joints and muscles, which is calming and regulating.
🌟 Motor Planning - Figuring out how to navigate obstacles and coordinate body movements builds strong motor planning skills. We have been playing with so many versions of obstacle courses - using bean bags, cones, small hoops, stickers... so many options.

The next time you see a child zooming across the clinic on a scooter board, know that they are doing some serious heavy lifting for their development!

What is your favourite scooter board activity? Do you remember these from elementary gym class?! Let us know in the comments! 👇

What a beautiful Monday!

We wanted to say a big thank you to our volunteers that help with the Monday morning group ❤️ Shruthi, Sonia and Aditi we really appreciate all of your energy and engagement.

Cardboard has been a running theme for a week or so... there are so many creative ideas emerging.

Plus, a lovely friend brought the first flowers to the Burrow 🌷

With the sun out I'm feeling particularly springy today - sending you all warm sunshine 🌞