WHAT IS OT?

Occupational Therapy is concerned with a person’s ability to participate in daily life activities or “occupations”, which include self-care, work and play.

A child’s job of growing into adulthood involves continual adaptation to the demands of the environment, as well as the assimilation of the various opportunities he / she   encounters. The dynamic nature of this interaction is determined by the child’s internal clock of maturation as the child adapts to his/her changing environment.
Occupational Therapy practice is based on an understanding of the interactions between children, their activities (or occupations), and their environment.

Occupational therapist (OT) empowers individuals to participate in their occupations / activities of daily living to their fullest potential. For children, their occupation is play and learning. Using sensory-integration techniques in therapy, children learn to integrate their senses, improve motor control, body awareness and organization skills and transfer these skills to their home and school environments. We also work in close liaison with other professionals like speech & language therapist, educational psychologist and teachers.

Who are the children who will benefit from an Occupational Therapy Intervention? 

Children who have difficulties with:

1. Gross motor skills
2. Fine motor skills
3. Sensory integration abilities (modulation and discrimination ability with sensory input)
4. Motor planning (praxis)
5. Visual motor integration
6. Visual perception skills
7. Co-ordination
8. Oral Motor (oral defensiveness and motor planning issues)

These difficulties might result in the following problems:

1. Clumsiness
2. Handwriting
3. Sitting still in class
4. Short attention span
5. Hyperactivity due to sensory seeking behaviours
6. Balancing responses
7. Manipulation of objects and tools
8. Independence in self care tasks
9. Performance in physical education
10. Feeding issues
    
    

Occupational Therapy Services include:

Assessment (screening or in-depth)

1. Standardised assessments
2. Informal assessment which includes clinical observations

The Assessment process allows the Occupational Therapist to:

1. Determine the core cause of the difficulty
2. Set Intervention Goals
3. Set a base line to determine the child’s abilities before intervention
   
   

Intervention (individual or group sessions)

1. Use of child’s strength to compensate on his weaknesses
2. Target the root causes of observed behaviours
3. Modify the child’s environment to match his abilities
4. Teach the child coping strategies
5. Direct training of targeted tasks
6. Advise parents and teachers on appropriate management techniques of the child
7. Sensory Integration Intervention that might include a personalized “sensory diet”
   
   

Occupational Therapy Intervention is child directed and is incorporating play as motivation for learning experience. During the Occupational Therapy session it is important to design suitable challenges for the child to provide opportunities for learning that will promote his/her sense of success. The fun experiences provided in the sessions motivate the child to develop skills to adapt more efficiently to his/her environment.
All this should promote positive emotions that will help the child to have better control over his/her life, socialize better and improve the attitude towards learning.