What is Occupational Therapy?
Although it sounds like it should involve finding a job or developing work skills, Occupational Therapy in the school context actually deals with skills specific to learning. For children, whose "occupation" is learning and play, it will focus on developmental milestones and skills required for playground and academic activities.
Occupational Therapists working with children typically use techniques and routines designed to target areas of delay and difficulty. For example, Occupational Therapists can evaluate children’s abilities, recommend and provide therapy, modify classroom equipment, and help children participate as fully as possible in school programmes and activities. A therapist may work with children individually, lead small groups, consult with a teacher, or offer in-service training to staff.
Early intervention therapy services are provided to infants and toddlers who have, or are at the risking of having, developmental delays. Specific therapies may include facilitating the use of the hands, promoting skills for listening and following directions, fostering social play skills, or teaching dressing and grooming skills and the motor skills essential for school activities.
Some occupational therapists are also trained in therapy with a sensory integration approach which uses play-like activities to help children better process and tolerate the information they get through their senses.
Sensory Integration Disorder is a neurological difference in which the brain is unable to accurately process the information coming in from the senses. Individuals may be oversensitive to some sensations, wildly overreacting to touch or movement or loss of balance; undersensitive to some sensations, needing crashing or banging or sharp sounds and flavours to register anything; or a combination of both. Sensory integration problems can affect the five traditional senses -- particularly touch and hearing, but also taste, sight and smell -- as well as two additional senses: the vestibular sense, which tells us where our body is in space, and the proprioceptive sense, which tells us what position our body is in.
Children with Sensory Integration issues may appear hyperactive, oppositional, bsessive-compulsive, or attachment disordered, when in fact they are just reacting to and compensating for their unreliable and unpredictable view of the world. Sensory integration therapy, performed by Occupational Therapists, can in some cases eliminate sensory integration problems, and in other cases teach individuals how to cope with those problems in a less disruptive way.
Fine motor skills refer to movements that require a high degree of control and precision. These may include drawing shapes, writing, cutting with a scissors, using eating utensils. Children with neurological problems or developmental delays may have difficulty with fine motor skills. They may receive occupational therapy to help them catch up, or may need modifications or assistive technology to keep up with schoolwork in spite of these delays. Children with poor pencil grip, poor handwriting, and poor coordination can benefit from occupational therapy intervention.
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