Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy is a therapeutic service designed to address delays in how a child interacts with their environment. Therapists look at the skills needed for children to perform successfully in their lives and in the world. An occupational therapist may assist in identifying areas in which the child's environment may be adapted to accommodate his or her needs, or in identifying specific adaptive equipment that help with the skills of living independently. One area that occupational therapists often address specifically is the area of fine motor development as it impacts the way a child interacts with their environment. Many of the fine motor skills that an occupational therapist addresses are prerequisites for later acquisitions of reading and handwriting skills, as well as for areas of self-care including dressing, grooming and independent feeding skills. In addressing fine motor skills, an occupational therapist may look at underlying areas that relate to fine motor development including upper extremity and postural strength and stability, muscle tone and motor planning. Other areas an occupational therapist frequently addresses are concerns related to sensory integration, or the body's and nervous system's internal organization, modulation, and processing of sensory information. Areas of sensory processing include auditory, vision, smell, taste, touch, perception of gravity and motion of head in space (vestibular) and position and movement of muscles and joints (proprioceptive). During an evaluation an occupational therapist will look at how a child responds to sensory information, including whether he or she has a tendency to over respond or under respond, as well as how a child perceives and discriminates sensory information.