Ashlee is an Occupational Therapist at Stepping Stones Therapy Services. She is also the leader of our services in Broome. Ashlee has a keen interest in the provision of therapy services within educational settings to allow stronger connections between therapists and teachers; in fact she had a break working at Stepping Stones to spend almost two years working in a Speech and Language school in London, doing exactly that! Ashlee enjoys providing assistance with the main occupations as a child: play, schooling and self-care.

Ashlee has completed additional training in: SCERTS (Social Communication Emotional Regulation and Transactional Supports), Attention Autism, Sensory Integration Education for Schools, AAC Implementation, Therapeutic Listening, The Traffic Jam in my Brain, and the Alert 'How Does your Engine Run?' Program. Ashlee has also completed training in working through Family Centred Practice, the Key Worker Model, and Routines Based Assessment and Intervention. She can provide services in the areas of fine and gross motor skills development, sensory integration therapy, visual perceptual and visual motor integration therapy and the development of daily living skills such as sleep, toileting and feeding.

Ashlee has also completed training in Aquatic Therapy - combining her love of swimming with Occupational Therapy practices. Aquatic Therapy is the use of water to support or teach a child skills just like they would in "land therapy". These skills could include developing balance when walking or climbing stairs, making it easier to jump, improving running speed, practicing sitting to standing or developing overall strength and mobility. The goal is to improve a child's independence to complete tasks in his or her everyday life - some of which may be more difficult when the child is on land! Aquatic Therapy also provides sensory opportunities for children. Water, particularly warm water, provides children with three kinds of sensory input:

-Hydrostatic Pressure (water completely surrounds and envelopes the child's body, perfectly distributing an equal and consistent amount of pressure on all submerged parts of the body),

-Vestibular stimulation

-Proprioceptive feedback (the resistance children encounter when they move, the feel of the water rushing past them, and the hydrostatic pressure when they are still all combine to give enhanced proprioceptive feedback).

You will find Ashlee primarily in Broome as she works incredibly hard supporting clients in this beautiful town; but occasionally she might pop in to our south west offices when visiting us through the year!