Melissa Wickham, OTR/L

Melissa has been an occupational therapist since 2008 and has been supervising and managing teams of therapists since 2010. She has experience working in a variety of settings, including homes, outpatient clinics, schools, and teletherapy. She has spent her career providing services to children with a wide array of needs, including sensory processing differences, early intervention services, musculoskeletal needs and anatomical differences, neurological diagnoses, motor incoordination, and feeding needs.

Melissa has received advanced training in all four types of sensory processing disorder, feeding therapy, oral-motor coordination, and early childhood development. She has completed extensive coursework in the H.O.P.E. method for neurological gains to address sensory processing disorder and primitive reflex integration, Handwriting Without Tears, the SOS Approach to Feeding, Beckman Oral Motor techniques, Talk Tools methods for addressing feeding and oral-motor development, Interactive Metronome, the Wilbarger Brushing Protocol, Therapeutic Listening, and the Alert Program. She has experience working with a variety of diagnoses, including sensory processing disorders, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, torticollis, developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, fine motor delays, handwriting difficulties and dysgraphia, selective feeding behaviors, ARFID, PANS/PANDAS, and neurodiverse learning.

She is passionate about empowering parents (they're the experts on their kids!) and helping them advocate for their children. Her own daughter was born in 2021 with a very rare birth defect, giving Melissa a unique perspective into the medically-challenging aspects of parenting and early childhood development. She has special interests in infant and toddler feeding, early childhood development, sensory processing, and reflex integration.

Melissa graduated from the University of North Carolina's Occupational Science program in 2008 and has lived in North Carolina ever since. She currently lives in Chapel Hill with her husband and daughter. She enjoys running, yoga, watching Tar Heel basketball, and spending time with her family.