• Screenings
• Evaluations
• Sensory Integration
• Fine motor/ Handwriting skills
• Play and social skills
• Self care (i.e. dressing, eating or bathing)
• Oral motor function
• Environmental Adaptations
• Adaptive equipment modification
• Sensory Integration and Praxis Test

What is pediatric occupational therapy?
Pediatric Occupational Therapists specialize in working with children and are trained to create opportunities for them to master developmental tasks and achieve independence in their home, school, and community.  A child may be referred to an occupational therapist because of:  clumsiness, difficulty with grasp or motor skills and difficulty playing or socializing effectively.

What services does Kidz Therapy provide under occupational therapy?

Screenings

• A screening is when an occupational therapist works briefly at a child’s visual and fine motor skills and sensory processing skills for approximately 15-20 minutes.  For a nominal fee, it allows for the therapist to determine whether a further in depth evaluation is needed.

• An evaluation is an in depth look at a child’s visual and fine motor skills by using standardized assessments, depending on the child’s age and abilities.  In addition, informal clinical observations and parent interviewing help the therapist to determine how well the child  sensory processing systems function and how effectively he/she can motor plan within his/her environment.   Typically, the therapist will require one to two hours with a child in order to complete the evaluation process.  Once the assessment is at it’s finishing point, the therapist most likely will determine whether therapy is recommended and the rationale for treatment.

• The Sensory Integration and Praxis Test is the only standardized assessment that can evaluate a child’s ability to process sensory input and praxis (motor planning) abilities.

What areas does Occupational Therapy address in the pediatric setting?

Sensory Processing

• Sensory processing is a complex set of actions that enable the brain to understand what is going on both inside your own body and in the world around you (Learning Opportunities, Sensory Processing Concepts page).

• Sensory Integration is used to describe certain processes that go on in our brain, allowing us to make sense of the information we get from our environment and act on it. The term refers to the process by which the brain interprets and organizes various sensory experiences including sight, sound, smell, touch, movement, body awareness, and the pull of gravity (Center for Pediatric Therapy).
  Sensory integration is a normal phenomenon of central nervous system functioning and provides a foundation for more complex learning and behavior. For some individuals sensory integration does not develop as efficiently as it should. Sensory integration dysfunction can result in motor development difficulties, learning difficulties, or behavioral concerns (Center for Pediatric Therapy).

• Motor planning is the ability to create an idea in one’s head, organize these thoughts into a sequence of events, and then actually physically complete the task successfully.  Many children with motor planning concerns have trouble learning new tasks, are awkward or disorganized in their approach to the tasks, are rigid or inflexible, and excel in highly structured environments.

• Fine motor skills generally refer to the small movements of the hands, wrists, fingers, feet, toes, lips, and tongue (enotes.com).  Many times we refer to fine motor skills in children as their ability to hold pencils with an age appropriate grasp pattern. 

• Writing by hand rather than by typing or printing (thefreedictionary.com).  This is one of the more common reasons occupational therapists receive referrals, the font formation is incorrect, the sizing and spacing is disproportionate, and there difficulty with line awareness.  Handwriting skills often are related to visual motor skills, the ability to coordinate the hands and the eyes fluidly to perform such tasks successfully.  In addition, handwriting is more often a symptom of sensory processing and motor planning deficits, rather than the actual issue itself.

• are a group of skills which people need to interact and communicate with others. Social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning these skills is called socialization (thefreedictionary.com).

• The capacity to take care of personal needs; drinking from a cup, eating with utensils, getting dressed, making choices, toileting, and becoming independent (selfcare.com).  Self-care relating to children varies on age and ability, however typically children ultimately benefit from being able to dress, feed, and toilet independently if possible. 

• The ability to have tongue, lips, cheek, and jaw muscle movements work cohesively together in order to perform motor tasks such as: speaking, facial gestures, eating, and drinking, etc.

• Sometimes children require their environment to change in order to be successful.  For example, a person who uses a wheel chair for mobility benefits from using a ramp in order to enter a building that has steps in front of it.  Children may need to have larger fonted material, they may require additional time, adaptive seating, and low stimulation surroundings in order to be successful depending on the needs, the task, and the abilities of the child.

• An occupational therapist may help a parent/caregiver to select appropriate adaptive equipment based on the child’s needs.  For example, a therapist may select an adaptive utensil to provide more independence and success to the child when attempting self feeding.  In addition, the therapist can also help to modify this equipment as needed, providing a larger grip on the adaptive utensil to make grasping less taxing on the fine muscles of the hand.