Play and school are two of the most important occupations to a child! Occupational therapy practitioners help children become as independent as they can be through play. In the broad field of occupational therapy (OT) there are eight focus areas to promote a holistic approach. The eight areas of occupation are activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living, sleep, education, social participation, leisure, work, and play. If a child is struggling in one or more of these areas, OT may be beneficial.
In OT, practitioners use activities that are meaningful and purposeful to your child to help them meet developmental milestones, build skills, make adaptations, and compensate for increased challenges. The following are various areas in which OT can support children:
1. Sensory processing: This includes our sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, but also with the addition of vestibular, proprioceptive, and interoceptive processing. These have to do with the body’s awareness in space, righting of the head, and awareness of the internal senses such as hunger, temperature, and bladder/bowel awareness. Sometimes a child may process these senses differently meaning the body and brain aren’t on the same page. OT can provide strategies to help children understand their senses and to be able to adapt to the world around them.
2. Gross motor coordination: Think of all the big body movements! OTs help children know where their body is in space and how to build skills to be able to maneuver through their environment functionally.
3. Fine motor skills: Think of all the small hand movements! OTs help kids build strength and coordination in their arms and hands to be able to write, manipulate items, and grasp any object (big or small), complete crafts, play, and meet developmental milestones.
4. Visual-motor integration: Eye-hand coordination! This is how the brain, eyes, and body all connect in order to catch a ball, use depth perception, track, read, write, and more. This can relate to either fine or gross motor activities. OT can help kids adapt and build skills to strengthen the eye, hand, and brain/body connection in order to increase their success with tasks.
5. Self-regulation: Kids may have difficulty with anxiety, flexibility, and understanding their emotions. OTs strive to help kids understand and work toward expressing emotions in a healthy way, as no emotion is bad. OT can also help kids learn and implement calming strategies into their daily life to help in responding as opposed to reacting to situations.
6. Picky eating: Does your child prefer neutral or beige foods? Do they only eat carbs? Is your child limited to certain foods that they will eat? OT provides sensory and behavioral interventions to help kids learn that food is not scary through exploring while utilizing the senses, as well as incorporating routines.
7. Executive functioning: If your child struggles with attention, planning, organization, initiation, memory, emotions, or problem solving, OT can help them build these skills through different activities.
8. Life Skills: Basic and Instrumental activities of daily living include functional mobility, dressing, toileting, showering, personal hygiene, eating, money management, meal preparation, communication, medication management, and community mobility. Depending on where a child is at developmentally, OT professionals can address various life and vocational skills.
9. Social skills: OT can help kids in their social skill development, such as learning to communicate, engaging in reciprocal play, understanding social cues, and practicing perspective-taking. In addition, OTs also address social-emotional concerns.
10. Reflex Integration: We are all born with reflexes that assist in early development. If the reflexes are still present after typically integrating, abnormal characteristics in development may be observed which OT can help with.
The vision of occupational therapy is to look at a person holistically when helping to improve their well-being. These are some of the main areas OTs may assess when working with a child. Please continue to follow more in-depth information and strategies that may help you with your kiddos in these various areas.
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