How can Occupational Therapy Help my Child?

Occupational Therapy (OT) helps children and adults develop (or regain) the skills needed to perform the activities of daily life. We call these ‘Occupations’.
When we talk about a child’s occupations this covers a huge area of developmental potential and independence. Some of the areas OT can support are;

Self-care:

Feeding, toileting, dressing, hygiene.

Sensory Regulation:

Focus and attention or concentration, regulating our responses to experiences and transitioning from one environment or activity to another, managing a multi-sensory environment like a classroom or supermarket, how the brain receives interprets and applies all the incoming sensory information, levels of alertness to be able to attend an activity. Being able to engage in messy play, self-care and tolerating things like hair washing or a child that frequently needs to spin or climb…can all be related to sensory needs.

Movement: 

Gross motor skills (larger actions such as running, walking, climbing) involving body and spatial awareness; how we move our body through various environments and around furniture, body coordination and organisation, planning and sequencing movements to achieve a task, strength and stamina, postural alignment to support sitting, understanding how much muscle force and pace is required for a specific task, visual motor tracking and sustaining visual engagement.

Precision and Dexterity: 

Fine motor skills (think of those fiddly things you do with your hands-from learning to grip as a baby to buttons, writing etc) this can involve toy and tool manipulation, use of both hands working together in play and fine motor games, shape and letter/handwriting skills, organising materials to achieve an activity.

Social Skills:

Sustaining attention during a social interaction, listening-understanding and responding, turn taking and impulse control, sharing, team exploration.

OTs are trained to break down daily tasks (like using utensils to eat dinner) into the finer detailed steps and skills required to achieve independence.

By doing this we can support you and your child to find the strategies and tools to reach the goals you choose to set. OT is never about fixing something, it is about finding that gap, and figuring out how to build a bridge to the other side.