Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy (OT) is a skilled service provided to children of all ages to assist them in reaching their full potential and highest level of independence. OT addresses “occupations” to help children thrive and engage in their occupations confidently and independently. These occupations may include: learning, playing, and other developmental tasks involving motor and social skills. Occupational therapy works with a variety of diagnoses and levels of function to target the following skills: 

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• Fine motor skills - dexterity, precision, and coordination to perform tasks such as handwriting, feeding, and dressing  

• Visual motor skills - coordination between vision and movement; important for tasks like catching and throwing, coloring in the lines, scissor skills, and handwriting

• Gross motor skills - movement and/or stability of the whole body impacting activities like weightshifting from one leg to another when putting on your pants or engaging your core to maintain your posture at a desk or table 

• Visual perceptual skills - the skills needed for the brain to interpret the input it is receiving from the visual system; visual perceptual skills are broken down into seven specific skills:

  • Visual form constancy 

  • Visual discrimination 

  • Visual figure ground 

  • Visual closure 

  • Visual memory 

  • Visual sequential memory 

  • Spatial relations

• Praxis and motor planning - the ideation, planning, sequencing, and execution of an activity; all four steps are critical for learning

• Sensory processing - the body’s ability to process information coming in from the senses; often, children with sensory processing challenges have too much or too little stimulation

• Self-regulation - the ability to “check in” and appropriately adjust behavior and emotions to meet the demands of an activity or environment

• Social skills - the ability to communicate and interact with peers 

• Activities of daily living - activities we do every day to take care of ourselves and others 

 

By building connections with our clients and their families, our occupational therapists are able to grow skill sets that are important to our families through play, practice, patience, and a positive attitude.