Understanding Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy helps children build essential motor, sensory, physical, and cognitive skills, enabling them to fully engage in everyday activities.

Occupational therapists support children with a variety of challenges, including Autism, ADD/ADHD, Down syndrome, Sensory Processing Disorder, feeding issues, and Visual Processing Disorders. These conditions can impact a child's ability to perform basic tasks such as getting dressed, using the restroom, eating, writing, coloring, and interacting appropriately with others. Through individualized therapy, children work on refining skills such as sensory processing, fine and gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination, social interaction, and feeding.

Treatment is tailored to each child's needs, using play-based activities and engaging tasks to encourage participation and progress. Therapists make sessions both fun and functional, integrating activities like board games, crafts, obstacle courses, and group play into therapy. This approach helps children develop the physical, cognitive, and sensory skills needed to accomplish daily tasks with greater independence.

• Developing Activities of Daily Living (ADLs): Teaching essential self-care tasks such as dressing, bathing, toileting, hygiene, feeding, and overall independence in daily routines.
   
• Enhancing Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs): Strengthening higher-level skills necessary for independent living, including meal preparation, household chores, money management, navigating different environments, and using public transportation.
   
• Improving Fine Motor Skills: Helping children develop proper grasp and release techniques to support handwriting proficiency. Therapy incorporates individualized techniques to meet each child at their current skill level.
   
• Supporting Self-Regulation and Control: Implementing strategies within daily routines to help children manage emotions, behavior, and sensory input effectively.
   
• Utilizing Brain Gym Exercises: Engaging in targeted activities designed to boost cognitive function, enhance learning, and promote mental organization.
   
• Developing Hand-Eye Coordination: Strengthening coordination for activities such as hitting a target, batting a ball, copying from a board, and other school-related tasks.
   
• Building Executive Functioning Skills: Encouraging independence and organization by improving adaptable thinking, planning, self-monitoring, self-control, working memory, time management, and organizational skills.
   
• Promoting Positive Behavior Across Environments: Teaching children alternative ways to express frustration, such as writing about their feelings or engaging in physical activities, instead of resorting to negative behaviors.
   
• Assessing the Need for Adaptive Equipment: Evaluating whether specialized equipment, such as wheelchairs, splints, bathing aids, or dressing devices, would benefit a child's mobility and independence.
   
• Enhancing Attention and Social Skills: Facilitating social skills groups where children engage with peers to improve interpersonal relationships while working toward individual and social-emotional goals.
   
• Providing Sensory Integration Support: Helping children process, interpret, and respond to sensory information (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell) in ways that enhance daily functioning and comfort.