What is Occupational Therapy?
Pediatric occupational therapy helps children gain independence for the job of life, while also strengthening skills needed to function and socialize. Occupational therapy facilitates the development of fine motor skills, sensory motor skills, and visual motor skills.
Why occupational therapy?
A child’s role in life is to play, learn and socialize. But sometimes a child needs help learning about his body before he or she can reach certain milestones. Our team identifies challenging areas and designs a unique play based plan to help your child reach his maximum potential.
What can parents hope to see accomplished through occupational therapy?
These are just a few of the many skills our OT staff can help address.
facilitate fine motor skill development, so children can grasp, and release toys
develop good handwriting skills
address hand-eye coordination to improve play and school skills (hitting a target, batting a ball, copying from a blackboard, etc.)
facilitate basic self care task (such as bathing, getting dressed, brushing their teeth, and feeding themselves)
assist children with behavioral disorders maintain positive behaviors across all environments (e.g., instead of hitting others or acting out, using positive ways to deal with anger)
assist children with severe developmental delays learn coordination skills needed to feed themselves, use a computer, or increase the speed and legibility of their handwriting
evaluate a child’s need for specialized equipment, such as wheelchairs, splints, bathing equipment, dressing devices, or communication aids
assist in improving focus and social skills with children who have sensory and attention issues