Celebrating Occupational Therapy Month by Renae

What is occupational therapy and what will it address? 
A pediatric occupational therapist is ready to help your child with a wide range of skills! We are trained to evaluate and address a variety of skills including: 

• Bilateral coordination skills – The ability to use both sides of the body in a coordinated fashion.  

• Executive functioning – The ability to complete higher level cognitive tasks involved in thinking, making a plan, problem solving, and completing activities.   
• Fine motor skills – Precise and coordinated hand and finger movements. The ability to draw, cut, color, use tongs, snap our fingers are just a few fine motor skills!  
• Handwriting skills – Handwriting is a complex activity involving language being recorded by hand using a writing surface and a writing instrument.  
• Range of Motion – Movement of our arms, fingers, legs, head, and other body parts to their full extent 
• Self-care skills – Dressing, toothbrushing, grooming tasks including bathing and hair care, cooking, and mealtime are all examples of self-care activities! 

• Sensory Processing – The ability to receive sensory information received from our world and respond to this input. Senses include vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, body position, movement, and interoception (information about the internal condition of our body—how our body is feeling on the inside). 
• Strength – Strength involves the ability to move against gravity, manipulate materials that provide resistance to our body such as squeezing putty or dough, , and the ability to sustain body positions – even including standing in one place! 
• Transitions – Successfully shifting from one activity to another throughout the day.  
• Visual motor skills – The coordination of the hands, legs, and eyes. These skills are involved in cutting, reading, kicking, or catching a ball. 
• Visual perceptual skills – The ability to organize and interpret what is seen and give it meaning. 

We also provide home program suggestions to assist your family in continuing to work towards their goals in their home and community settings. Stay tuned in the coming days for specific ideas related to each area listed above. 
It is our great hope that the therapy process will be exciting AND challenging for the children that we serve – we love to see children develop to their full potential and are excited to celebrate their victories with you – big and small! ​

We will continue to post more about OT throughout the month.  
​Check our Facebook page for more information and tips.