Occupational Therapy
Occupational Therapy (OT) is a therapy that focuses on improving the development of fine and gross motor skills, sensory integration skills, and daily living skills. The goal of Occupational Therapy is help children achieve competence in all areas of their lives including self-help, play, socialization, and communication. |
Occupational Therapy services include:
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At The Hope Learning Center, we are committed to establishing a strengths based approach in developing individualized treatment goals to enhance each child’s skills and abilities. To ensure consistency across treatment settings, we recommend that parents participate in therapy sessions so they may effectively implement the strategies in the home environment. |
Click the links below to find out more about each topic:
Daily Living Skills
Play Skills
Motor Skills
Anger Management
Hand-Eye Coordination
Sensory Integration
Daily Living Skills
Activities of daily living (ADLs) are defined as:
"The things we normally do in daily living including any daily activity we perform for self-care, work, homemaking, and leisure."
Basic living skills include the ability to:
Play Skills
A child's main job is playing.
Play is an innovative way to introduce new skills and allow a child to “practice” these skills.
Play is also a vehicle utilized to promote social interactions and peer interactions.
An occupational therapist can evaluate a child's skills level regarding play activities, compare them with what is developmentally appropriate for that age group, and formulate a treatment course to enhance a child’s ability to “play.”
Motor Skills
There are two categories of motor skills:
- Gross Motor Skills refers to the function of large muscle groups
- Fine Motor Skills refers to the coordination of small muscle groups.
Deficits in motor skills can impede a child’s social and academic performances.
An Occupational Therapist will develop an individualized treatment plan which will include innovative and creative techniques to address motor skills deficits.
Anger Management
Anger is a difficult emotion to identify, understand, and express.
An Occupational Therapist can provide different techniques and positive approaches to express anger such as deep breathing techniques, physical exercises, and keeping a “feelings” journal.
Hand-Eye Coordination
Hand-Eye Coordination is defined as the ability of the vision system to coordinate the information received through the eyes to control, guide, and direct the hands in the accomplishment of a given task, such as handwriting or catching a ball. Hand-eye Coordination uses the eyes to direct attention and the hands to execute a task.
Hand-Eye Coordination is required in almost every daily activity, from eating, dressing, and using the computer. Children with a hand-eye coordination deficit attempt to avoid such activities, however this increases the severity of the problem. Although children develop at varying rates, an Occupational Therapist will teach hand-eye skills and utilize repetition as a means to ensuring mastery.
Sensory Integration
We utilize our senses to learn and process information about the world. The goal of sensory integration therapy is to help the child better absorb and process this information.
Children with sensory integration dysfunction do not process the information correctly; therefore incorrect information is sent to the brain. There are two types of sensory disorders:
- Hypersensitivity – overreact to stimuli
- Hyposensitivity – inability to utilize sense to process information
Children with autism tend to either seek out or avoid certain stimuli in an effort to satisfy their nervous system.
To address sensory integration disorder, occupational therapists will develop an individualized treatment plan to address challenges with:
- touch (tactile)
- movement
- motor planning
- balance (vestibular)
- vision
- hearing
- smell and taste)
- body position (proprioceptive)