Occupational Therapy Services

How to help determine if your child can benefit.

Is therapy for my child?

Occupational Therapy (OT) helps children learn the skills they need to function within their home, school, and community environments.  OT focuses on improving your child’s school readiness skills, such as handwriting, cutting and drawing, using school tools and materials.  OT helps your child learn to dribble a ball, gain motor skills to play outside with friends.  OT helps a child learn to hold a spoon, tie their shoes and get dressed for more independence.  OT can help a child learn self-regulation strategies to decrease anxieties, defensiveness, and behavioral over-reactions.

 

Does your child meet any of the following criteria:

  • Seem clumsy with decreased coordination

  • Seem fidgety and restless

  • Have trouble sitting still to do homework, schoolwork

  • Avoid participating in sports and extracurricular activities

  • Avoid climbing and exploring of playground equipment

  • Use an awkward grasp posture with hands on crayons, pencils and scissors

  • Have trouble copying, tracing and forming letters

  • Have trouble using basic utensils to feed self

  • Avoid handwriting and complains of pain while writing

  • Avoid coloring, cutting, and hands-on motor tasks

  • Overreact emotionally with crying and tantrums

  • Appear under or over-stimulated by sensory stimuli

  • Walk on their toes

  • Have sensitivity to touch of fabrics, being messy, dislikes being touched without initiating it

  • Have difficulty keeping their personal space, being too close to others

  • Seek out deep pressure, rough and crashing play

  • Use too much or too little force during play, when using crayons, a pencil, and other motor tasks

  • Eat a limited diet, limited food groups

  • Have difficulty with executive functioning skills (organization, time management, problem-solving, following directions, planning)

  • Have difficulty with clothing management and dressing self in age-appropriate clothing

  • Have difficulty with manipulation of movement and navigating stairs, environmental environments

  • Have difficulty with postural control, strength, endurance

  • Have difficulty with visual skills, copying in school from the board, completing puzzles and other visual activities

  • Have difficulty participating in formal/informal education

  • Have difficulty with age appropriate life skills (cooking, cleaning, clothing management, money management, shopping)

If you answered yes to any of the above an Occupational Therapy evaluation may be warranted.  The Occupational Therapist gains information through testing, discussions, and observations of your child’s skills levels to see where their development may have been impacted.