Pediatric Occupational Therapy in Portola Valley

TheraPeeps delivers mobile pediatric occupational therapy to families in Portola Valley. Our team comes to your home, your outdoor space, or your child’s school, so your child receives therapy in the environment where they are most regulated and most themselves. There is no pediatric specialist within 30 minutes of Portola Valley along Page Mill Road or Alpine Road. We built our mobile model specifically for communities where the nearest clinic is a long drive away. Your child starts each session already in their comfort zone.

In Portola Valley, the outdoor setting is also a clinical tool. Open land, trails, and natural terrain offer rich sensory input for children working on regulation, motor development, and relational connection. We use your environment intentionally as part of the therapeutic work.

Families in Portola Valley work with us on the full range of pediatric occupational therapy needs. Because our team comes to you, every service is delivered in your home or on your property, including outdoors, which we actively encourage when the environment supports it.

Our services include:

• Nature-based therapeutic activities and outdoor sensory exploration
• DIR/Floortime therapy, developmental, relationship-based therapy led by a trainer with 10+ years of experience
• Sensory processing and sensory integration (SIPT and STAR certified)
• Emotional and self-regulation support, our most-requested service
• Fine motor skills, handwriting readiness, and visual-motor integration
• Feeding therapy using the SOS Approach (sequential oral sensory)
• Gross motor development, coordination, and body awareness
• Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), an evidence-based auditory intervention
• Autism support, neuro-affirming, Board Certified in Autism
• Developmental evaluations for children ages 0-8
• Caregiver coaching and home program development
• Nature-based therapeutic groups (seasonal availability)

Nature-based therapeutic playgroups therapy, DIR/Floortime, and sensory regulation are central to how we practice. We work with a wide range of developmental and sensory concerns. Some families come to us with a recent diagnosis. Others have had specific observations for months and are looking for next steps. No formal diagnosis is required to begin services. We meet families wherever they are in the process.

We commonly support children with:

• Sensory processing differences (sensitivity to textures, sounds, movement, or touch)
• Autism spectrum disorder
• ADHD and attention or impulse-control challenges
• Developmental delays (fine motor, gross motor, speech-adjacent motor skills)
• Feeding difficulties, selective eating, food refusal, texture aversions
• Emotional dysregulation, meltdowns, and difficulty with transitions
• Anxiety expressed through the body, avoidance, shutdown, or sensory-seeking
• Hypotonia (low muscle tone) and coordination challenges
• Dyspraxia and motor planning difficulties
• Difficulty with self-care skills: dressing, grooming, toileting
• School readiness and pre-writing concerns
• Social participation challenges in play and peer settings

Call us: (650) 204-0677

Our in-home pediatric occupational therapy model is designed for communities like Portola Valley, where the nearest specialist is a long drive from Page Mill Road or Alpine Road. Your child receives therapy at home, and if your property has open land, trails, or outdoor space, we use it as part of the session. Natural terrain is a clinical asset for children working on sensory processing and motor development.

Our credentials are specific. Brooke is SIPT and STAR certified in sensory integration, Board Certified in Autism, a DIR/Floortime trainer with over a decade of experience, and trained in the SOS Approach to feeding and the Safe and Sound Protocol.

Our approach is relationship-based and developmental. Rather than behavior-focused repetition drills, we build foundational skills through connection and play, following your child’s interests and working within the relationships they already trust.

Our team brings 20+ years of combined clinical experience working with families across the Peninsula.

We serve children ages 0-8. Early support builds more durable outcomes, and we welcome referrals for infants and toddlers.

TheraPeeps is a private-pay practice and does not bill insurance directly. This keeps caseloads small and our approach fully individualized. We provide detailed superbills after each session so you can submit for out-of-network reimbursement. Many families in Portola Valley carry PPO plans with out-of-network benefits for dependent care. We encourage you to call the member services number on your insurance card and ask specifically about out-of-network occupational therapy benefits for a dependent child. Reimbursement rates vary by plan, and many of our families recover a meaningful portion of session costs this way.

For questions about fees, scheduling, or what to expect from an initial evaluation, please call us at (650) 204-0677. We are happy to walk you through the process before you commit to anything.

Call us: (650) 204-0677

Do you drive out to Portola Valley? It feels far from most providers.

Yes, absolutely, Portola Valley is within our service area and one of the reasons we built a mobile practice is precisely because communities like yours have so few local healthcare options. We know that families here are accustomed to driving 20 to 30 minutes for any specialist appointment. With TheraPeeps, that drive disappears entirely. We come to you, which also means your child starts therapy already in their comfort zone rather than arriving stressed from a long car ride.

Our home is on a large property with open land and trails. Can therapy actually happen outside?

This is one of our favorite questions to answer, because the answer is yes, and we genuinely mean it. We are trained in nature-based therapeutic approaches, and open outdoor space is one of the richest sensory environments we can work in. Uneven terrain, natural textures, open space for movement, the unpredictability of the outdoors, all of these are therapeutic tools for children working on sensory processing, motor development, regulation, and relational connection. If your property has land, trails, or even just a big backyard, we will use it intentionally and joyfully.

There are almost no pediatric specialists near Portola Valley. What options do families here actually have?

This is a real and frustrating reality for Portola Valley families, and we hear it often. Most specialist care requires a drive to Palo Alto, Mountain View, or further, and pediatric OT waitlists at clinic-based practices can stretch months. TheraPeeps offers a different path: because we come to you, geography is not a limiting factor. We can typically schedule evaluations more quickly than a clinic, and ongoing weekly sessions happen in your home without any commute burden. For families who have been waiting or driving long distances, the mobile model is often a significant relief.

What is DIR/Floortime and why is it a good fit for young children?

DIR/Floortime is a developmental, relationship-based approach to therapy that works with a child’s natural interests and emotional connections rather than trying to shape behavior from the outside. DIR stands for Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based. Floortime is the interactive practice itself, we meet your child where they are, follow their lead, and use play and relationship to build the foundational capacities that support learning, communication, and regulation. Brooke is a trained DIR/Floortime practitioner with over 10 years of experience. It is a particularly strong fit for autistic children and children with developmental or sensory differences, and it aligns completely with our neuro-affirming philosophy.

My child is 18 months and I am not sure if it is too early to reach out. When should we call?

Now is the right time, and in Portola Valley, reaching out early matters even more than it might elsewhere. There are no local pediatric specialists here. For families who wait until a concern feels urgent, the next step is usually a months-long waitlist at a clinic in Palo Alto or further out. Early intervention is one of the most evidence-supported principles in pediatric OT: the nervous system is most plastic in the first years of life, and early support creates more durable outcomes than intervention that starts later. We serve children from birth through age 8. Because we come to you, geography and commute are not barriers to getting started. If something feels off, with feeding, sensory responses, motor development, or how your child connects with you, please call us. You do not need a diagnosis, and a conversation costs nothing.