Does My Child Need OT?
If your child is displaying the following behaviours contact Grace Children’s Therapy to discuss how your child will benefit from Occupational Therapy. If you’re unsure whether Occupational Therapy is the appropriate intervention, we are always happy to have a chat over the phone.
Occupational therapy involves helping children with their occupations – their activities. Children sometimes need to learn specific strategies so that they can learn to participate in activities with other people. Occupational therapy intervention addresses key skills which are needed for children to be able to perform their daily activities.
Fine motor
puzzles, construction activities, colouring, drawing, cutting, handwriting legibility and speed, typing skills, threading, buttoning skills.
Written expression
thinking up and organising ideas on paper with structure, being able to expand on written ideas.
Gross motor
ball skills, skipping, jumping, running, balancing.
Self care
dressing, eating, hygiene, toileting, doing shoes laces, buttoning, bathing, brushing teeth.
Play
imaginative play, purposeful, structured and sequenced play, developing ideational skills and expanding on play concepts.
Social
friendship, taking turns, sharing, reciprocal play, reading social cues, reading facial expressions, understanding feelings and emotions.
Mechanical difficulties
posture, seating, muscle tone
Sensory abilities
coordination, sensory processing, body awareness, balance, motor planning.
Cognitive abilities
attention, memory, organisation and planning.
Sensory processing
Difficulty with interpreting sensory feedback, defensive to specific sensory stimuli, behavioural difficulties and anxiety related to sensory input eg. strongly react to hair cutting or brushing, doesn’t like tags on clothing, irritated by clothes and socks and certain fabrics, becomes distressed in noisy environments.
Does your child:
- Appears to daydream in class
- Appears to be awkward and clumsy – always falling over or bumping into things
- Has particular sensitivities to sounds, lights, fabrics that impacts on their behaviour and daily activities
- Unexplained behaviour problems or “acting out”
- Has difficulty with concentrating and is easily distracted
- Can’t seem to get organised
- Has trouble with writing and keeping up with peers in the classroom or completing school work.
- Denies hearing the beginning or middle of long oral information
- Often requests that information be repeated
- Gives slow or delayed responses to verbal instruction
- Difficulty remembering or following verbal instructions
- Doesn’t remember the question when called upon in class
- Has difficulty with handwriting and forming letters and numbers
- Is unable to dress themselves
- Plays the same games over and over – doesn’t seem to like trying new unfamiliar activities
- Has trouble with fine motor skills such as buttons, scissors, colouring, holding utensils.
- Can’t seem to remember multi-step instructions