Six-year-old Wesley is bright, creative and energetic. He’s good at math and reading and happily shows off his ability to find difficult answers in a word search.
He’s also well-spoken.
But that hasn’t always been the case. When he was 18 months old, his pediatrician grew concerned because Wesley hadn’t yet begun to speak. In fact, he still wasn’t talking at the age of 2, and the doctor recommended having him see a developmental pediatrician.
“That was terrifying, because navigating the world of therapy is quite daunting when you don’t even know where to start,” said Wesley’s mom, Caroline Diquisto.
But Diquisto and her husband are not the type of people to put something important on the back burner. For the Deerwood couple, discovering their son’s disorder so early was a lucky break, and they lost no time addressing it.
The developmental pediatrician diagnosed Wesley with childhood apraxia of speech, and a neurology evaluation added a diagnosis of ADHD. The boy began to work with a speech therapist. Then, when Wesley was 4, a family friend also recommended they try occupational therapy, which focuses on performance of daily activities.
This multidisciplinary approach would ultimately prove to be effective, as would the family’s discovery of The Morris Center, a neurodevelopmental treatment and assessment clinic located in Ponte Vedra Beach. At The Morris Center, Wesley was entered into an intensive program that included both speech and occupational therapies.
He graduated from that on April 7 and has moved over to The Morris Center Academy, which is his current school and offers him an hour of occupational therapy daily. At the end of the school year, Diquisto said she will enroll her son in a summer camp at the center, where he will continue his therapy five days a week.
After that, he will move on to a private school.
“We don’t have any issues with his speech anymore,” said Diquisto. “He uses full sentences. They’re not broken like they were before.”
In addition, Wesley has learned to express his emotions, something he hadn’t been able to do previously.
“I never knew what he was feeling,” his mom said. “He never expressed how he was feeling about something.”
Not being able to express frustration, for instance, prompted him to start kicking or acting out in another way.
Alexa Verzwivelt, who holds a doctoral degree in occupational therapy from the University of St. Augustine for Health Services, has been working with Wesley since he started at The Morris Center.
“Our approach is to kind of address the whole sensory system,” she said, listing the various skills that involves: coordination, strength, balance, visual motor, fine motor and gross motor. “We help to strengthen all those areas that can, as a whole, facilitate better functioning at school or at play.”
Every case is unique, and occupational therapists tailor their approach to the individual they are treating. One of the reasons the local clinic is successful is that disciplines are not siloed.
“At The Morris Center, we have a transdisciplinary approach,” Verzwivelt said. “We have OT. We have language instructors. We have psychology services. And we all collaborate together each week, talk about every child every week to help facilitate more progress.”
In the short time Wesley has been at The Morris Center, Verzwivelt has witnessed his rapid improvement.
“He has grown so much, mentally and physically,” she said. “His emotional regulation has just sky-rocketed.”
Parents whose children are struggling at school, are unable to sit still or are distracted, are unable to play appropriately with peers or lack coordination may want to have them assessed to determine whether they need occupational therapy.
For Diquisto, there is no doubt that it made the difference in her son’s progress.
“I really think that for Wesley, his occupational therapy is the most important thing,” she said.
The Morris Center is located at 50 Executive Way, Ponte Vedra Beach. Learn more at themorriscenter.com or call 904-834-2482.
