Therapy to Go at St. Jude

What is Therapy to Go?

Therapy to Go is a home program created by the Rehabilitation Services (Rehab) team. This team consists of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.

The Therapy to Go program is designed to give children activities that promote their development and life skills.

Your child’s therapist will give you a bag of toys to take home. This bag will have 4–6 toy items that are yours to keep. These toys have never been used before. You do not have to return them.

Your therapist will teach you specific activities to do with your child. Completing these activities will help your child reach their developmental milestones.

Doing at least 1 of the activities every day will help your child progress toward their goals and improve their skills and quality of life.

Your child may be able to do the activity for a short time at first. Work on increasing the time they spend on these activities to build their activity tolerance.

Why Therapy to Go is important

When a child has a serious illness, their learning and development may slow down.

Rehabilitation services will be provided as needed to promote age-appropriate development. But there are things that you can do at home to help them progress more quickly.

Play is a useful tool to help your child reach developmental milestones. Use these activities as an opportunity to play with your child. If your child has fun, they will be more likely to complete the activity.

The Therapy to Go program will help you work with your child outside of therapy to improve:

• Visual motor skills, or using visual information to complete movements based on what they see
• Hand-eye coordination, or the ability to connect visual information with hand movements, such as catching a ball
• Gross motor skills such as crawling, walking, or reaching for objects
• Fine motor skills such as grasping or picking up objects
• Communication skills such as listening, understanding, and talking
• Cognitive skills such as problem solving, object or color identification, or cause and effect
• Sensory awareness and processing skills, or the ability to recognize and respond to changes in the environment
• Socioemotional skills, or the ability to regulate emotions and understand cues from others

Many of the activities will help your child work on improving several skills at once. You can also make the activity harder as your child gains new skills. 

How to perform Therapy to Go activities

You may be given multiple activities to do with your child. Activities may include using the following objects:

Follow your care team’s instructions on how to do these activities.

Tips for Therapy to Go

• Use words that are both specific and descriptive while teaching your child to do these activities. For example, use the color of an object. Or use directional words like “on top of” or “next to.”
• Start with easier activities first. Once they have mastered that activity, move to a harder task.
• Show your child how to complete the activity first. Then have them try it on their own.
• If your child cannot complete the activity, help them do it. Give them verbal cues or put your hand on top of theirs to guide them through the activity.
• Play with your child. Make the activities fun.
• Minimize distractions during activity time. Turn off all electronics and remove anything that may distract your child from completing the activity.
• Praise, encourage, and show excitement throughout the activity to promote your child's engagement.
• Reassure your child when they cannot complete an activity. You may say, “Great try! We will try again another time.”

How to contact your care team

If you have questions about your child’s Therapy to Go activities, please call Rehabilitation Services at 901-595-0594 or email the occupational therapy team at occupationaltherapy@stjude.org.