ABLE UK

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ABLE UK ABLE UK (Advanced Behavioural Learning Environment) is a special needs service provider located in Dubai Healthcare City.

19/10/2026

Does your child repeat the same phrase again and again? Do they rock their body while sitting, playing, or feeling excited?
These behaviors may be forms of vocal stimming, echolalia, or motor stereotypies.
• Why does this happen?
Some children use repetitive movements and sounds to regulate sensory experiences, express emotions, or find comfort.

🌈 HOW CAN SENSORY INTEGRATION OT HELP?
At our therapy centre, we focus on understanding each child’s individual sensory needs.
Through individualized, play-based interventions, occupational therapy may help children develop sensory regulation stratenies, improve body awareness, and participate more comfortably in daily routines.
Speech and language therapy can support communication when repeated phrases are part of echolalia.

When repetitive sounds are actually tics, specialist assessment and tic-focused treatment such as CBIT may be more appropriate.

🩷 We at ABLE UK don’t just look at the behavior. We look at
the need behind it.
Because every child deserves to be understood, supported, and celebrated.

18/10/2026

Touch has emerged as an important modality for the facilitation of growth and development in humans.

This is how it develops our brains :

Brain Mapping and Development
• Somatosensory Cortex: Touch signals travel to the primary somatosensory cortex and postcentral gyrus, creating and continuously revising a mental map of the body.

• Neural Plasticity: Tactile stimulation drives synaptic organization, long-term potentiation (LTP), and the release of brain energy stores (glycogen) necessary for learning and memory.

• Early Growth: In infants and children, mechanosensory feedback prevents developmental delays and promotes healthy brain weight and structure

Motor Control and Dexterity
• Fine and Gross Motor Skills: Feedback from the skin and joints lets the cerebellum coordinate posture, balance, and fine movements like writing or buttoning a shirt.

• Tactile Discrimination: The brain uses touch
without vision to identify an object’s size, shape, and texture (stereognosis), guiding how firmly to grip tools or items.
Instagram •
• Body Awareness: Combined with proprioception
(joint and muscle sense) and the vestibular system, touch builds the foundation for spatial orientation and action planning (praxis).

Emotional Regulation and Social Bonding
• Nervous System Calming: Gentle tactile input
stimulates the vagus nerve, shifting the body into the parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) state to lower stress.

• Neurochemistry: Positive touch triggers the release
of oxytocin (bonding and trust), serotonin, and dopamine while decreasing stress hormones like cortisol.

• Attachment: Skin-to-skin contact from birth shapes
emotional stability, security, and long-term social health.

Lifelong Cognition
• Sensory Enrichment: Activities involving varying textures, kneading dough, or hand massage keep neural pathways active in adults and seniors, helping stave off cognitive decline.

Would you like to explore tactile activities for children’s sensory development or how to address tactile over- or under-sensitivities? Contact us!

17/10/2026

When visual or verbal cues aren’t enough, we bring in tactile input.
Oral Placement Therapy (OPT) using TalkTools is a game-changer for building muscle memory, spatial awareness, and stability in the jaw, lips, and tongue.
By using specific, targeted tools (like straws, horns, or bite blocks), we help children physically feel where their articulators need to go. This tactile feedback bridges the gap between struggling with a sound and finding the right placement for clear speech and easier feeding.

Always consult with a qualified Speech-Language Pathologist to find the right tool hierarchy for your child.


15/10/2026

Did you know? Babies should start to transition from bottles to straw cups after 12 months and be off bottles by 18 months!

WHAT?
Pediatricians, pediatric dentists, speech language pathologists, and myofunctional therapists all agree that bottles are for babies! Toddlers should use straw cups or open cups (no sippy cups!)

WHY?
Bottles can contribute to cavities-sipping from a straw cup reduces prolonged exposure to milk or juice, which can cause cavities.
Bottles can pool milk behind teeth, especially if babies go to sleep with them-Google “bottle rot” -and don’t put your baby to sleep with a bottle of milk!

14/10/2026

What looks like simple mirror play is actually deep, targeted primitive reflex integration!

In this session, we’re working on integrating the ATNR (Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex).

When ATNR remains active past early infancy, simple tasks like crossing the midline, holding a pencil, tracking across a page, or staying focused can feel like a constant battle for a child’s nervous system.

Here’s why this mirror setup is pure clinical magic:
🪞 the visual feedback helps the brain map movement in real time
🧠 it trains the left and right sides of the body to move independently
⚖️ it corrects posture and builds core control from the inside out

By integrating these foundational reflexes, we clear the path for higher-level motor planning, balance, and classroom success!

Powerful foundations in the making! 💪💙

13/10/2026

In an 8-year-old child, the absence of an automatic arm extension (the parachute reflex or Moro reflex ) when falling forward or backward is a sign that requires a medical evaluation.
By age 8, this lifelong protective reflex should be deeply integrated and instantaneous. Not throwing the arms out to break a fall leaves a child highly vulnerable to head, facial, or torso injuries.

When an older child does not exhibit protective extension, doctors and pediatric therapists typically investigate several areas:
Neuro-Motor
Immaturity or
The central nervous system may be experiencing a delay in processing quick changes in balance and gravity, meaning the brain does not send the “protect” signal in time.

Sensory Processing or Vestibular Issues

The vestibular system (inner ear) and proprioceptive system (body awareness) tell the brain where the body is in space. If these systems are under-responsive, the child might not accurately perceive that they are falling until it is too late.

Developmental Coordination Disorder (Dyspraxia)

This condition affects physical coordination, making it difficult for the brain to plan, sequence, and execute smooth, rapid motor responses like catching oneself.

Motor Weakness or Muscle Tone Issues:

Significant weakness in the shoulders, arms, or trunk, or atypical muscle tone (such as hypotonia), can impair a child’s ability to quickly deploy their limbs.

Recommendation; seek a Pediatric occupational therapist specialize in assessing and treating retained or absent reflexes. We use targeted activities—such as therapy ball exercises or equilibrium games—to safely strengthen these motor pathways and teach the body to protect itself during a fall.

12/10/2026

Handwriting is the struggle we see.
But handwriting requires so much more than just the hand.
Before writing can feel easier and more automatic, the brain has to coordinate visual tracking, hand-eye coordination, shoulder and postural stability, proprioception, motor planning, and precise control of movement.
Primitive reflexes can be part of that picture, too. The Palmar reflex can influence how the hand grips and releases, while patterns like ATNR and STR can affect things like crossing midline, coordinating the eyes and hands, and keeping the body stable while the hand is moving.
So, we put the pencil down.
An activity as simple as rolling a ball along a line gives us a way to work on some of the foundational skills underneath handwriting, instead of simply practicing handwriting over and over again.

Having issues with handwriting? Contact our team!

✏️📓😊

11/10/2026

This is one of the things we look at during an oral motor assessment.
In this session, we’re using a chew tube to practise more controlled jaw movements.
We’ve also observed mouth breathing and a forward head posture - important factors to consider when looking at a child’s overall oral function.
Our therapy focus includes:
* Improving awareness of jaw movements
* Practising jaw stability and control
* Developing more graded and coordinated biting movements
The goal isn’t simply to chew harder - it’s to develop better control.
At ABLE UK, we look beyond the activity to understand WHY a child may be struggling.

How does your child chew ? Does the jaw click side to side?

06/10/2026

“Does your child chew food but keep it in their cheeks?”

Pocketing typically occurs because a child lacks the oral proprioception (awareness) to feel where the food is, struggles with the tongue coordination required to move food to the middle of the mouth, or experiences sensory mapping confusion. Gentle vibration wakes up the nerves in the oral cavity, amplifying sensory awareness and encouraging correct tongue lateralization.

Two seconds might not sound like much.
But for a child with significant oral sensory sensitivities, tolerating a Sensi in her mouth for even TWO seconds can be a huge step.
Today, we celebrate those two seconds.
Because progress doesn’t always look big from the outside - but to the child, their family and their therapist, it can mean everything.
Follow Able UK to see more of the little moments that make a BIG difference!

05/10/2026

It might look like a simple movement, but the Landau reflex is part of a child’s developing postural control, coordination and movement.
When a child finds this position difficult, it can be useful to look at the bigger picture:
** How is their core and postural strength?
* How do they coordinate their body against gravity
Are everyday motor skills feeling harder than expected?
One movement alone doesn’t diagnose a problem — children develop differently, and there can be many reasons why a particular position is challenging.
At ABLE UK, we look beyond one “test” and consider the whole child, their development and how they function in everyday life.

Could your child hold the Superman pose? Tell us in the comments.

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Address

2nd Floor, Building 33, Dubai Healthcare City Unit 1605 Fortune Towers Cluster T JLT
Dubai

Opening Hours

Monday 08:00 - 19:00
Tuesday 08:00 - 19:00
Wednesday 08:00 - 19:00
Thursday 08:00 - 19:00
Saturday 08:00 - 18:00
Sunday 08:00 - 19:00

Telephone

+97145520351

Website

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