Parkside provides an extensive team of highly skilled specialists in the critical areas of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and social work.  Our therapists collaborate together intensively with our teachers in ways that set us apart and work insightfully with your child one-on-one and in small groups, both in and out of the classroom.

Speech and LAnguage Therapy

The Parkside School was originally developed as a place for children who experience problems in language development —this remains a significant focus and commitment of ours.
Our staff consists of five speech and language therapists.  The team teaches specific abilities to students and it also develops adaptations to be used in the classroom in order to increase children’s independence —often including the use of visuals or special technologies. 

Our emphases in Speech and Language aid toward successful academic and social development are:

Strengthen essential pragmatic communication and thinking skills. 
Address language challenges that students face in the classroom and elsewhere. 
Enhance literacy skills by building foundational abilities in oral language. 
Bridge a connection between oral abilities to reading and writing.

Occupational therapy

Within the school setting, occupational therapists address the needs of each child in order to support learning and independence within the classroom.  Our team consists of four occupational therapists that provide treatment in both the classroom and a fully equipped sensory gym.  In addition, the department collaborates with teachers in order to implement assistive and sensory tools, compensatory strategies and environmental adaptations in order to maximize success in the classroom.  

Common skill areas addressed include:

Improve fine motor and gross motor skills for participation in school-related activities.
Develop and refine handwriting skills.
Provide support to improve sensory processing skills.
Educate and promote the use of tools/strategies to enable self-regulation.
Improve visual perceptual and visual motor integration skills.
Teach and enhance self-help skills for greater independence at school/ home.
Support social-emotional development.

Social Work

At Parkside, the social work department focuses on enhancing children's social an emotional developments in a variety of ways. Our team consists of five Clinical Social Workers and three Graduate Interns who have worked closely with the interdisciplinary staff and parents to conduct and facilitate: developmental assessments; individual play therapy and small socialization groups; classroom-based social/emotional learning groups; crisis intervention; the development of individualized, therapeutic materials, such as bibliography. Through our integrated approach which is based on relationships play and social capacities, we continuously emphasize and cultivate children's strengths potential in the following areas:

Positive mutual pleasurable relationships
Intentional and purposeful communication
– including all forms of play depending on the child's developmental level and readiness
Symbolic functioning an understanding of emotional cause-and-effect
Reflective ability and abstract thinking
Self-awareness and sense of self
Awareness of others intentions and feelings perspective taking
Social problem-solving and the ability to compromise