What is Occupational Therapy?
Occupational Therapy (OT) facilitates the skills necessary for an individual to perform their job of living or their “occupation”.  Everyone has an occupation – even a child!  A child’s “occupation” is to grow and develop, learn, and play.  As they get older they need to start taking care of their own self care needs like brushing their teeth and getting dressed – and eventually participate in school and completing homework assignments.

OT helps children who have physical, sensory or cognitive deficits to achieve their developmental milestones or increase their independence for age appropriate skills.  OT enhances body awareness, improves attention, and develops hand functions for success during play, daily living and school activities.  Through occupational therapy, children develop their sense of self as they interact with family, friends, and others to learn and play.

Occupational therapy can promote self-confidence and independence through the development of:

• Attention skills
• Sensory processing skills
• Organizational skills
• Hand dexterity / fine motor skills
• Visual-spatial skills
• Visual-motor skills
• Motor planning
• Age appropriate skills of daily living

When should a child see an Occupational Therapist?
An Occupational Therapist helps children who have difficulty with:

• Performance of age appropriate self-care activities such as brushing teeth, buttoning a shirt and tying shoes.
• Fine motor activities such as handwriting or cutting with scissors.
• Initiating or completing tasks such as doing a simple puzzle or playing on the slide or swing.
• Visual motor and visual perceptual activities such as copying from the board and completing assignments accurately.
• Aversions to different sensory input, such as tactile input as seen in avoiding “messy” activities or becoming frustrated when physical contact is made.
• Cognitive tasks such as paying attention, following instructions, problem solving and organization.
• Thinking skills such as remembering homework assignments, organization and problem solving.
• Social situations including interacting and playing appropriately with other children.
• Using their arms, hands and fingers for basic developmental milestones such as crawling, grasp and release.

Occupational Therapy Resources