What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational Therapy helps children to overcome obstacles to be as independent as possible. 

Occupational Therapy helps children to overcome obstacles to be as independent as possible. All children have specific roles that they play in life such as being a family member, student or sporting team member.

Occupational Therapists provide children with fun, positive activities to help them improve their cognitive and motor skills to become more independent in the activities of their daily lives.

Occupational Therapy aims to improve children’s development in the following areas:

Fine Motor Skills - Involve coordinating precise, controlled hand movements to perform an activity. Many functions contribute to fine motor skills, including muscle control, hand-eye control, and coordination. For children, fine motor coordination is essential to performing daily tasks such as using pencils, tying shoes, and opening and closing backpacks. 

Gross Motor Skills - Involve the child's large muscle groups, which enable the child to accomplish physical challenges (climbing, running, swinging).

Handwriting – This is a vital component of a child’s education and is often a cause of difficulties in the classroom. Therapy aims to improve various components of handwriting such as grasp, posture, speed, fluency and legibility etc. 

Visual Perception - Relates to the ability to understand what is seen. A child must have good visual perceptual skills in order to complete many activities in their daily routine such as putting puzzles together, identifying letters, copying from the board, reading a story or doing up buttons.

Sensory Processing – Refers to the way in which information which is taken in by our senses and is organised in the central nervous system. In everyday activities we are constantly taking in information about our environment, processing this information, and reacting in order to be able to do everyday things. Children may demonstrate over sensitivity to certain sensation, sensation seeking behaviour, defensiveness and difficultly maintaining a calm alert state. 

Self Care - This refers to the self help skills required to participate in daily routines such as dressing, toileting, using cutlery, tying shoe laces. Older children often benefit from additional assistance in orgainsing themselves to complete the morning or night routine effectively and independently.