Occupational, Physical, and Speech Therapy services provided at YAI are mostly habilitative, designed to build skills, slow deterioration, and prevent regression, this kind of therapy helps patients with I/DD successfully join meaningful activities in the home and community. Habilitative care includes longer individualized treatment sessions over time. This is especially important for patients with I/DD as it allows for more time to establish a working relationship between the patient and the therapist, address fears, frustrations, and concerns, allow for adjustment period, ensure understanding, and carryover of interventions.

YAI caters to the I/DD population by modifying the environment to decrease distractions, providing adequate sensory stimulation, learning about the patient’s routines, designing tasks that are age -appropriate and purposeful, may help improve their engagement in activities. YAI Habilitative Therapists also explain techniques in simpler terms, breaking down a task into component parts, use creative and unique methods that are tailored for the patients. The creativity and specialized skills of our staff, many of whom have been with YAI for at least 10 years, have been beneficial in the therapeutic care for the patients with I/DD. Their commitment to providing unique, culturally- sensitive approach, providing the just-right challenge, while meeting them at their developmental level, require extra time.

For patients with I/DD, gains can be small and may take time to achieve. At YAI, our habilitation therapies are long-term and delivered by experienced, committed, and creative clinicians to ensure those gains happen.