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)