Special Needs

We believe every child should have access to high quality care and get the opportunity to get the right start to a lifetime of a healthy smile. Our highly trained dental team is happy to provide top-notch dental care to patients with special healthcare needs, behavior disorders, mental disabilities, and physical disabilities.

De-Stress with Happy Visits!

We understand that a visit to the dentist can often be challenging and stressful for a child with special needs, as well as for their caregiver. Our office offers “Happy Visits” to introduce your child to the office, staff, and doctor (and picking out a prize of course), dimmable lights, sound reduction, weighted blankets and sensory toys to help make your child’s experience with us positive.

Parents are always welcome to accompany their child to the treatment area throughout the entire visit.

Properly Trained and Experienced Staff

Here at Bitesize, we have been trained to partner with caregivers and go the extra mile to ensure a positive experience for your child, despite any special healthcare needs. Dr. Sam received extensive training with patients with special healthcare needs and is committed to working closely with her patients and their families to determine the best options for delivering safe, stress-free care. Did you know pediatric dentists receive 2-3 years of additional training after they complete dental school, one of the most important aspects of their training is being able to competently manage patients with special needs? This makes a pediatric dentist the best qualified to meet the dental needs of these patients.

Let Our Social Story Help Familiarize Your Child with Our Office

As a service to our patients, we have created a Social Story to help familiarize your child with our office.

What is a social story?

A social story is a written and visual guide describing a particular social interaction, in our case that is a visit to the dentist. It is designed to help describe the expected experience of a dental visit in a manner that is easy to understand. The purpose is to familiarize the patient with the environment and expected steps of a dental appointment. A dental visit is a new and sometimes stressful experience for new patients. We have found the social story is most helpful with very young patients, patients with developmental delays, and patients with Sensory Processing and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

About our Dental Social Story

We have put together a customized book for our patients that may benefit from it to help ease their concerns about their dental appointment. This story may be used for your child’s first appointment and for subsequent appointments. This book is primarily designed for autistic children or those on the spectrum. However, the ideas implemented in the book and the idea of using the book to introduce your young child to dental care will be helpful to anyone that uses it. We highly recommend reading the story together with your child a few times before your dental visit. You can pick up a copy of this book at our office or you may download a PDF version to read with your child.

If you are a new patient and have any concerns about your child’s first visit to our office, please let us know so that we may prepare accommodations if needed. Informing us of your concerns ahead of time will help us understand how to best meet you child’s needs.