Pediatric Occupational Therapy in Bismarck, ND
Empowering Every Child's Journey
We Get It. We're Parents Too.
We’re parents, just like you. We want what’s best for our kids, just like you. We know there is a better way to make that happen, just like you.
At Maximized Chiropractic, we understand your desire for natural, holistic healthcare options for your loved ones. We saw a need in our community for a place where families could feel truly heard and supported on their wellness journey. That's why we created a safe space, free from fear or judgment, where you can explore the incredible benefits of collaborative care for your entire family.
Our philosophy centers on empowering your body's innate ability to heal. We focus on creating a healthy nervous system by eliminating spinal stress. This natural, drug-free approach to healthcare can significantly impact the overall health of everyone, from expectant moms to the tiniest newborns.
What is Neurologically Focused Occupational Therapy?
Occupational Therapists (OTs) support children and their caregivers in building the skills needed for a variety of activities in everyday life. Pediatric OTs target several key developmental milestones in order to improve a child's independence and confidence in life, including:
Play Skills and Social Interaction Skills: Helping children with the essential building blocks to growing up and being a kid including taking turns, sharing, and coping when things don’t go their way during play.
Self-Care Skills & Feeding: Improving daily routines such as brushing teeth, toilet training, dressing, sleep, feeding one self using utensils, and helping picky eaters expand their diet.
Fine Motor and Visual Motor Skills: Developing hand strength and age appropriate grasp patterns so children can utilize a pencil efficiently for handwriting, using scissors, buttoning clothes, and tying their shoes. Hand-eye coordination for drawing, completing puzzles, copying from a white board at school, and catching a ball during sports.
Social Emotional Regulation: Helping children manage daily frustrations, transitions between activities, or coping with losing a game while equipping parents with strategies to assist with meltdowns and tantrums.
Sensory Processing Skills: The sensory system is involved in every single activity we participate in each day! OT’s help children who are over-sensitive or under-sensitive to their environment learn to regulate how they respond to movement, sights, sounds, and textures. We also help children who are “busy bodies” - constantly on the go, bumping into things, etc. channel that energy in more safe and appropriate ways through the use of a sensory diet routine.
Executive Functioning Skills: These are underlying cognitive skills including, but not limited to, starting a task, time management, sequencing, organization skills, planning, problem-solving, attention, and impulse control. These brain functions are involved in every single activity we do each day and when they aren’t working properly it can lead to difficulties with attention during school or homework, poor impulse control, difficulties with starting or stopping activities, and those “messy” children in our lives who can’t keep their desks and sports bags organized.
Primitive Reflex Integration: All children are born with primitive reflexes that are helpful within the first year or so of life. Eventually, we want these reflexes to “integrate” or disappear to allow for more higher level movement patterns and cognitive patterns to take over. When these reflexes stick around, it can contribute to emotional regulation difficulties, fine and visual motor skill deficits, and sensory processing challenges, to name a few. OTs are skilled at integrating primitive reflexes to help children thrive in daily life!
What does an OT session for kids look like?
In our day-to-day work, a typical session is a mix of play and creativity while also packed with clinical purpose. You might find us helping a child conquer their fear of automatic hand dryers, or digging for “hidden treasures” in putty while secretly building hand strength and sensory tolerance. While our obstacle courses look like pure fun, they are actually thoughtfully designed reflex integration therapy. We also “play” with food to help expand picky diets beyond dino-nuggets and cheese pizza. Whether we are building Lego sets to improve executive functioning skills and hand-eye coordination or baking chocolate chip cookies to improve attention skills, every activity has a goal. And yes, sometimes we will even beat your child at a board game... but it’s purely for therapeutic purposes, of course!
How does Chiropractic Care help Occupational Therapy to Create A Well-Balanced Child?
At Maximized, we recognize that your child’s nervous system is the vital foundation for all growth and development. By adding occupational therapy to our dedicated team, we are able to bridge the essential connection between a calm, regulated nervous system and the practical daily life skills required for your child and family to truly thrive.
Emotional Resilience & Self-Regulation
Children with sensitive nervous systems can often experience anxiety, behavioral challenges, and sensory processing difficulties. Chiropractic adjustments align the nervous system while occupational therapy bridges the gap between what a child can do and what they want or need to do during daily life by providing real life strategies for families. By pairing chiropractic and occupational therapy services, we are setting children up for success to regulate their emotions, build confidence, and navigate social situations with greater ease.
Increased Independence with Fine and Visual Motor Skills
We understand that every child's movement and development are deeply connected to their nervous system. Our approach with combining pediatric occupational therapy and chiropractic care goes beyond traditional therapy; we focus on calming and regulating your child's nervous system while providing effective therapy treatments to unlock their natural potential for coordination, learning, and meeting developmental milestones.
Who We Help: Your Child's Wellness Journey
We believe that pediatric occupational therapy can benefit children at every stage of development, addressing children of all needs and promoting optimal health and well-being for the whole family. Our personalized approach ensures that every child can find the support they need to thrive. We often see that a specific symptom is simply the body's way of signaling a deeper issue. The table below shows how our neurologically-focused approach can help with some of the most common concerns we see in our office.
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The first year of life is filled with so many “firsts” and new sensory experiences for babies, including eating, sleeping, playing, and learning to soothe. With that comes plenty of learning curves for parents, as well. When a baby faces challenges in these areas, it can impact the whole family. Our specialized infant OT services provide gentle, evidence-based strategies to support your baby's development from day one. We commonly work with families to support:
Feeding & Eating: Transitioning to solids, pre and post tongue/lip tie oral motor support, and overcoming texture aversions.
Sensory Regulation: Helping babies who are easily startled, overly fussy, or have difficulty settling down and sleeping.
Developmental Milestones: Supporting babies who struggle with tummy time, head control, rolling, sitting, or reaching for toys.
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A toddler's day is spent learning, playing, and doing things "all by myself!" When sensory overstimulation, motor delays, or behavioral challenges get in the way, daily routines like mealtime, bedtime, and transitions can become stressful for the whole family. Our toddler OT services provide playful, targeted interventions to help your child thrive.
We commonly work with families to support:
Self-Care Independence: Learning to use utensils during meal time, drinking from an open cup, assisting with dressing, and potty training help
Fine & Visual Motor Skills: Building hand strength and hand-eye coordination for stacking blocks, stringing beads, pre-writing activities, and using both hands together during play.
Emotional Regulation: Helping toddlers who have frequent, intense meltdowns, struggle with transitions, or cannot cope with being told “no.”
Sensory Processing Skills: For children who are always on the go, bouncing off of the walls, running, jumping, and crashing into everything. Or, on the other hand, children who are scared of every loud noise, are overly sensitive to clothing tags and textures, or are extreme picky eaters.
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School brings a giant leap in expectations. If a child struggles to keep up with handwriting, keep their desk organized, or handle the sensory overload of a classroom, they can quickly feel left behind or discouraged and oftentimes behaviors will follow as well. Our occupational therapy services get to the root cause of these challenges, helping your child build concrete skills while boosting their self-esteem.
We commonly work with families to support:
Fine Motor Skills & Handwriting: Promoting age appropriate pencil grasp, letter formation and spacing, and scissors skills, as well as managing buttons, zippers, and tying shoes needed for independence at school.
Visual Perceptual Skills: Supporting reading and writing by improving tracking, copying from a whiteboard, and recognizing spatial patterns.
Emotional Regulation: Helping families navigate meltdowns and tantrums with emotions escalating from 0 to 100 from being told “no”, losing a game, or not getting their way.
Sensory Processing & Focus: Helping children who are easily distracted by noise, bothered by clothing textures, constantly fidgeting, or seeking intense movement to stay calm and regulated.
Executive Functioning & Attention: Teaching strategies for organization, following multi-step directions, time management, and maintaining attention in class.
Primitive Reflex Integration: The foundation to all other skills including learning, fine motor skill development, and emotional intelligence. OTs are skilled at testing for and integrating retained primitive reflexes through purposeful reflex integration exercises.
Meet Our Dedicated Therapist
Why Families Choose Maximized
We Support: We provide a space where you feel heard and understood, without judgment. We support you, your needs, and your wants through not just the care in our office, but your entire life’s journey.
We Empower: We help you find the confidence to make the best decisions for your family.
We Educate: We equip you with the knowledge and tools to make informed decisions about your family's health.
We're a Community: Come hang with us, we got your back! We're are a thriving community of empowered families. Want to join us?
Miranda Evanson OTD, OTR/L
Miranda believes that every child deserves the chance to explore confidently and reach their fullest potential. Her passion for pediatric occupational therapy ignited when she saw how targeted, playful interventions could transform a child's life, opening up a world of possibilities. She's a firm believer that therapy should be an adventure, not a chore, and her sessions are filled with laughter, creative games, and exciting challenges that make kids forget they're even "working." She specializes in sensory regulation, behavioral control, and oral motor function.
Pediatric Occupational Therapy Resources
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Pediatric Occupational Therapy Resources 〰️
Ready to Join the Maximized Family?
Your child's health and development journey is unique, and at Maximized, we are honored to walk alongside you. We believe in the power of specialized, neurologically focused occupational therapy to unlock your child's full potential, helping them move, learn, and thrive at every stage. In our supportive, judgment-free space, you'll find not just expert care, but a community committed to empowering your family's well-being. It's time to embrace a life of greater movement, confidence, and joy for your child.
Ready to see us?
Click the button below if you are wanting to join the Maximized Family and we will call you ASAP!