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What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational Therapy works to help a child become more independent in everyday tasks. Occupational therapists provide treatment that is designed to support a child and their family when they experience difficulties in the following areas:

Difficulty playing with toys and doing puzzles.

Difficulty using feeding utensils at an age appropriate time.

Difficulty fastening and unfastening clothing fasteners: buttons, buckles, zippers, snaps, and tying shoelaces.

Unable to establish a hand dominance, poor pencil grasp, poor handwriting of letters and numbers.

Difficulty coloring, tracing, drawing, and copying pre-writing shapes.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

STRENGTH, MOVEMENT, & BALANCE

Appears clumsy or uncoordinated.

Difficulty with discriminating between right and left High or low muscle tone.

Difficulty coordinating both sides of the body at the same time.

VISUAL PROCESSING/PERCEPTION

Difficulty recognizing both letters and numbers and matching shapes.

Has poor eye contact.

ORAL MOTOR/ORAL SENSORY

Child appears to be excessively picky when eating certain foods and textures of food.

Child excessively mouths clothes, toys, and/or objects beyond an age appropriate time.

SENSORY PROCESSING  

Overly sensitive or heightened reactivity to sound, touch, smell, or movement.

Under-responsive to certain sensations (e.g. high pain tolerance, doesn’t notice cuts or bruises, doesn’t care if hands are sticky).

Constantly moving, jumping, crashing, bumping, and/or rough-housing.

Easily distracted by background noise and activities that others are doing.

Becomes easily emotional when feelings get hurt or they get hurt physically.

Difficulty coping with change and transitioning between environments or activities.

Has meltdowns and/or inability to calm self when upset.

SOCIAL INTERACTION  

Difficulty adapting and interacting socially and engaging with family and peers

Gets overly focused on one subject, toy, object, activity.

LEARNING CHALLENGES  

Easily distracted, unable to concentrate and focus, as well as difficulty following instructions or completing activity.

Hyperactivity or low energy.

Makes letter and number reversals.

Difficulty learning new material.

PLAY SKILLS  

Difficulty with imaginative play; prefers repetitive play as well as solitary play.

Wanders aimlessly without purposeful play and/or moves quickly from one activity to the next without completion.

Does not explore toys appropriately or with purpose.

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