Benefits Of Occupational Therapy For Children

Occupational therapy (OT) helps people who struggle to do everyday tasks because of poor motor skills. For kids, that includes tasks that are part of learning and functioning well at school. OT works on the skills kids need to do the things they struggle with, from zipping their coat to writing and typing.

General Activities of Daily Life:

The list starts with providing aid to the young ones facing difficulties in daily activities like brushing, dressing, toileting, writing, drawing, etc. The therapy helps develop these self-help skills in the children.

Sensory Processing Issues:

It is generally observed that children with sensory processing issues are unable to synthesize information in the basic five senses i.e. sight, smell, touch, hear, and taste. These children may experience over-sensitivity, under-sensitivity, or both at different places like school, home, or anywhere. These kids often feel difficulty in paying attention and get distracted by a loud fire alarm and other such things. They also try to avoid recess and activities going on around them.Occupational therapy can help those young ones regain the skills and addresses the issue in a proper manner.

The occupational therapy practitioner can help gain these skills by observing the child’s behavior and developing a plan for them. The OT uses different sets of methods and plans, and there is no such single ideal program. These may include activities to help with interaction, puzzles to develop coordination and awareness and more.

These are designed for the child’s legs and arms so that they can work in an effective way. These are basically divided into two broad categories: bilateral and hand-eye coordination skills. For hand-eye coordination, ask your child to hit a ball with a bat, catch a ball, etc. Bilateral activities provide the ability to use both sides of the body in an accurate manner. You can ask your child to roll out pastry sheets from a play dough, ask them to pull a rope hand-over-hand, etc.

Visual Perception Activities

These activities help the child understand the information send by eyes to the brain. For form constancy and to help them understand shapes put objects on a tray and ask your child to recognize them. You can also use any object at home for this activity. Use books to teach them different fonts and same alphabets of different size to enhance their abilities. Ask your child to draw shapes, lines, alphabets, etc. You can also use jigsaw puzzle to aid development process.

Activities for Fine and Gross Motor Skills

Fine motor skills are required for those who have trouble using a hand, fingers, and forearm properly. The basic therapy includes simple exercises of arms, wrist, fingers, etc., so that they can perform regular work like holding a pencil with ease. Give them safety scissors and ask them to cut out shapes from the paper.

For gross motor skills, help your child with core and shoulder activities. These activities may include swimming, hopscotch, wheelbarrow walking, walking over an unstable surface, etc.