About Hikeabilities
Hikeabilities OT is an outdoor pediatric occupational therapy program in the Philadelphia area that provides children of all abilities an opportunity to access and participate in hiking and outdoor exploration through development of sensory, motor, social-emotional, and executive functioning skills.
Skills Targeted
Fine Motor
Fine motor skills help kids with the small but mighty tasks—like grasping a stick, tying a knot, or picking up rocks. Outdoor play naturally strengthens these muscles. Think of zipping a backpack, opening a water bottle, and collecting leaves. These activities boost hand strength, coordination, and precision all while simply hiking along a trail.
Gross motor skills support your child’s ability to explore, play, and navigate the world. Climbing over logs, jumping in puddles, balancing on rocks—these are nature’s ways of building strong, confident movers. Trails and outdoor spaces will be used as natural gyms that develop strength, balance, and coordination.
Gross Motor
Nature is the ultimate sensory playground. The rustle of leaves, the crunch of gravel, the scent of pine—all these sensory experiences help kids learn to process and respond to the world around them. Whether your child needs more calming input or more alerting sensations, the outdoors offers a rich, flexible environment to support sensory regulation in a gentle, engaging way.
Sensory Processing
Visual Motor Integration
Visual-motor integration helps kids match what they see with how they move. Nature is full of chances to practice—from marking a location on a map to placing a walking stick on sturdy ground. Even games like following a winding path or tracing patterns in the sand build skills for handwriting, sports, and more.
Social-Emotional
Nature helps children slow down, connect, and regulate. Outdoor play encourages turn-taking, sharing space, and working together—whether building forts, navigating trails, or spotting wild life. With the right support, these moments become stepping stones for emotional awareness, self-regulation, and friendship skills.
Executive Functioning
Executive functioning skills help kids plan, organize, and stay flexible—key for everything from getting dressed to tackling schoolwork. Outdoors, these skills come to life through adventure: figuring out how to read a map, remembering the rules of a nature scavenger hunt, or adapting when the trail gets muddy. Nature’s unpredictability becomes a powerful tool for growing mental flexibility and focus.
Benefits of Outdoor Therapy & Hiking
Hikeabilities aims to encourage outdoor exploration, with an emphasis on hiking. Hiking is a cost-effective leisure activity that encourages physical activity while reaping in the additional benefits that nature provides. Outdoor therapy uses the natural environment as a facilitator during the therapeutic process. Research shows that engagement in nature promotes enhanced well-being, mental health, social connectedness, and improved cognitive, motor, and functional skills. Participation in therapy in the outdoors allows kids to learn and build skills in a setting that doesn't feel like therapy, it just feels like FUN
What Makes Hikeabilities Unique?
Outdoors
Hikeabilities takes place completely outdoors. Your child gets to ditch screen time to enjoy all that nature has to offer while engaging in therapeutic activities.
Hiking
While Hikeabilities is a nature-based therapy program, the emphasis is placed on hiking. Your child will build the skills necessary for tackling hiking trails of various difficulty levels based on their abilities.
OT
Hikeabilities is led by a licensed occupational therapist who will help your child build skills and provide education on strategies and supports to promote carry over of those skills across settings.
Socialization
When kids are cooped up indoors, this decreases their time spent socializing with others. Hikeabilities strives to help children build social-emotional connections with others.