Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND)

Developing skills at home and at school to help prepare children and young people for adulthood

Howard, Occupational Therapist (OT) works mainly with older children at Cognus Therapies (year 9 and above). As part of the annual review process, Howard calls parents and carers to talk about how their child is managing at school, at home and in the community, including the ‘Preparation for Adulthood’ agenda and the skills involved in […]

Supporting and Inspiring the Future OT Workforce

Hannah, a 6th form student from Cheam High School recently spent time with the Cognus occupational therapy (OT) team at Carew Academy to experience a day in the life of an occupational therapist. We provided a full day of activities, which included observing therapy sessions, supporting a child with learning in the classroom environment, making visuals […]

Positive Response to OT Strategies

Diana, an Occupational Therapists (OT) who works with pupils in an autism base in Sutton tells us about a recent experience helping a child regulate his emotions, so he could access his PE lesson at school. “I have been working closely with one boy who has difficulty with regulating his emotions in the classroom. We […]

Joint Working with mainstream schools to support emotional regulation

Occupational Therapy at Cognus Limited has provided an emotional regulation group within a mainstream school setting to help increase pupil’s awareness of emotions (e.g. worried, silly or angry) and to begin to recognise them in themselves and others. The Occupational Therapist (OT) used visuals, songs, videos and games to support the children to understand emotions […]

Occupational Therapist represents Cognus Limited at The OT Show at the NEC, Birmingham in November!

1During her time working at Oakfield Primary School, Autism Base (April 2019 – present), Shelly Fredericks (Highly Specialist Occupational Therapist) noticed a trend of fussy eaters. This led her to review the literature for a solution and adapt a ‘Messy Chef’ programme created by a colleague, Sudheer Kuttan (OT); based on her findings and research […]

Occupational Therapy Week – 7th – 13th November 2022

Our OT’s want to share what occupational therapy is all about and why it’s important. Occupational Therapy is often overshadowed by other easier to understand professions, and so until everyone understands the life changing power of occupational therapy, OT Week is here to stay! Read some of our good news stories, which will be released […]

Children’s Therapy Review

To read more about the Children’s Therapy Review, please click on the link below Update on the Children’s Therapy Review – Sutton Council

Read more on Children’s Therapy Review

Social, Emotion and Mental Health (SEMH)

SEMH stands for social, emotional and mental health. All of us have different SEMH profiles; this includes needs (meaning things we find difficult) as well as strengths that help us cope with the demands of daily life. Sometimes SEMH needs are significant enough to negatively impact how we manage in daily life. The Special Educational […]

Building Independence Skills

Independence skills or life skills are skills we use in everyday activities that are part of our daily routine. There are daily opportunities for children and young people to learn and develop life skills from all the activities they do. Through life skills, theyare able to practice many other skills including fine motor, gross motor […]

Supporting children to self-regulate and engage in learning

What is self-regulation? Self-regulation refers to the ability to maintain an arousal level that is appropriate for any given situation.  Self-regulation also involves having the ability to generate appropriate behavioural and sensory responses to the input in different situations and daily routines and the ability to demonstrate self-control: to monitor and control behaviour, attention, motor output, emotions, […]