FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: Monday, April 26, 2004
CONTACT: Debbie Abrams
561-394-0785/Tel.
561-289-1378/Cell
561-394-6762/Fax
In Recognition of National
Autism Month
New Kind of Therapy Announced for Autistic and Special Needs
Children
DAVIE, Fla.—An innovative new summer program providing
special needs children with fresh, creative therapy in a fun way will be offered
for the first time in South Florida. The new program, Therapy of the Arts, will
be offered at Dimensions Therapy Center.
Therapy of the Arts incorporates art, music, cooking and movement in a newly
created summer program, allowing speech and occupational therapists to use the
arts to make therapy fun and exciting. Studies show that the use of movement,
music and the arts benefits children with special needs.
The structured summer therapy program will be less academic, while emphasizing
important life skills, enabling each child to reach individual therapy goals.
Some children with special needs cannot participate in traditional summer camp.
Therapy of the Arts allows them to have some of the fun of summer camp, while
continuing to work on their therapy goals.
Therapy of the Arts was created by Valerie Herskowitz, a veteran speech therapist,
who is the parent of an autistic child and the owner of Dimensions Therapy Center.
Dimensions Therapy Center offers speech and occupational therapy, as well as
computer based therapies. Therapy of the Arts has been offered this spring as
an after-school program. This will be the first time it will be offered as a
summer program.
“Therapy of the Arts is a completely new form of therapy that uses right
brain stimulation to develop left brain skills,” Valerie Herskowitz, said. “The
program makes therapy functional, yet fun.” Ms. Herskowitz is the founder
of the non profit National Autism Registry and a licensed speech therapist in
practice for 25 years. “In this program, children are actually creating
something,” Ms. Herskowitz explained.
Children in the Therapy of the Arts after-school program participate in cooking
activities including for example, making “ants on a log.” “Filling
celery with peanut butter and topping it with raisins seems easy, but for a child
who has trouble using his or her hands, it is useful work. It involves learning
to wash vegetables and cleaning up after food preparation. During cooking activities,
children also ask questions while working with other children,” Ms. Herskowitz
added.
The program also includes an arts and crafts component to improve language and
fine motor skills. Children follow instructions to produce a finished product,
while interacting with other children. Children work with beads, fashioning jewelry,
puppets and holiday crafts.
The music and movement portion of the program encourages children to respond
with specific movements to music to help reach occupational therapy goals.
The innovative summer program will be offered from 9-12 and 1-4 daily, Monday
through Friday, June 14 - August 13 at Dimensions Therapy, 12545 Orange Drive,
Davie.
During the summer, children may attend for one hour to five half days weekly.
The program, conducted by therapy professionals, is open to children age two
and over. A teen program is also available. Fees vary depending on whether a
child needs one-on-one attention or can attend group sessions. Individual therapy
costs may be covered by Medicaid and insurance.
In addition to her responsibilities at Dimensions Therapy Center, Valerie Herskowitz
is a member of the adjunct faculty at the Graduate School of Speech-Language
and Communication Disorders at Nova Southeastern University. She is a well known
lecturer and has written extensively about computer based intervention for children
with special needs. Ms. Herskowitz was invited to speak before the Hong Kong
Board of Education on children with special needs. She was a software reviewer
for The Advocate, the Autism Society of America’s magazine. To learn more
about Therapy of the Arts, call 1-800-99-SPEECH (1 800-997-7332) or (954) 236-9415.
