Chandana Dash, OTR/L, Co-Owner
Chandana Dash, OTR/L, is the co-founder of Synergy Therapeutic Group in Carbondale, Illinois, and the clinical lead of its pediatric occupational therapy division. With more than three decades of pediatric OT experience, Chandana has built her practice on a foundational belief: every child deserves a full hour of attention, and every family deserves a real partner in their child’s development.
Her clinical focus is children with sensory processing differences, developmental delays, autism, motor planning challenges, and the broad category of children who are simply struggling without a clear diagnosis — the ones who have fallen through the cracks of an evaluation-driven system. Her work centers the family as the primary intervention, not just the child.
The Practice Story
In 2003, Chandana and her husband Subrat Bahinipati, PT, co-founded Synergy Therapeutic Group on the same radical idea: that therapy should be relationship-based, unrushed, and tailored to the actual human in the room. While Subrat built the adult chronic pain side of the practice, Chandana built the pediatric division — one of the few clinics in Southern Illinois offering one-on-one pediatric OT in hour-long sessions, with no caseload of sixty children, no thirty-second handoffs to support staff, and no treatment plans dictated by what insurance will reimburse.
Over the years the pediatric division has grown to serve children in Carbondale and throughout Southern Illinois, and through Chandana’s telehealth practice, families across the United States and internationally who do not have access to quality pediatric OT in their area.
Clinical Approach
Chandana’s approach treats the child within the family system rather than in isolation. A child whose sensory regulation is fragile lives in a family whose own nervous systems are also fragile from chronic worry, sleepless nights, and the daily logistics of a child whose needs do not fit standard expectations. The family is not an obstacle to therapy — the family is part of the therapy.
Her areas of focus include:
- Sensory processing differences — including over-responsivity, under-responsivity, and sensory-seeking patterns
- Autism spectrum support — child-led, sensory-friendly, family-centered care
- Developmental delays — whether or not a formal diagnosis exists
- Motor planning and dyspraxia — helping children build the bridge between intention and movement
- Handwriting and fine motor skills — foundational visual-motor work for school-age children
- Parent training and family coaching — equipping parents to be effective treatment partners at home
- Telehealth pediatric OT — serving families nationally and internationally
In Chandana’s Words
Parents come to me already exhausted. They have been told their child is behind, or different, or difficult. What they need first is not another label — it is someone who sees their child clearly and tells them what is actually happening, in language they can hold on to.
Your child is not broken. Their nervous system is adapting to inputs we have to understand before we can help. Once we do that work together, families get their child back — and they get themselves back too.
— Chandana Dash, OTR/L
Beyond the Clinic
Chandana mentors pediatric occupational therapists who want to build careers around relationship-centered, family-empowering care — not high-volume billing models. The Synergy pediatric mentorship gives early-career OTs the time, supervision, and family-systems training they need to develop into clinicians who can see what a 30-minute session-bound provider cannot.
She is also the architect of the Synergy Parent & Caregiver Training Program, an online program that teaches parents the foundational skills to support their own child’s development at home — whether or not they have local clinical resources.
Patient Stories Under Her Care
Real family stories from Chandana’s pediatric caseload are available on the Patient Success Stories hub and the Pediatric Video Stories gallery. Notable cases include children whose sensory and developmental challenges resolved over months of one-on-one work paired with intensive parent coaching — outcomes the families had been told to stop expecting.
Languages & Availability
Chandana sees children in person at Synergy Therapeutic Group in Carbondale, Illinois, and offers telehealth consultations to families nationally and internationally. New family consultations can be arranged through the contact page.