Occupational therapy can help children succeed

Have you ever wondered what an Occupational Therapist (OT)” does? And what about OTs that work with children? You may have heard of OTs that work in hospitals, but you’re not sure how an OT would help your child. Allow me to explain about what a paediatric OT would do.

Occupational therapists help people of all ages achieve independence in their daily life. When it comes to children, OTs do just that! We work with children to help them reach independence in their day to day skills, known as “occupations”. For children, their occupations include things such as playing, socialising, kicking a ball, sitting at circle time, using a spoon, helping with household chores or even tying their shoelaces. OTs can help your children acquire the skills they need to help build their independence and increase their sense of accomplishment.

Here are a few examples of different areas OTs work on:

Self-care skills: Completing those daily ‘self-care’ tasks are crucial in allowing your child to build their independence.

When children struggle with these daily tasks, it can mean starting every day off with frustration. The therapy can help children build their independence when getting dressed by including fasteners (buttons, zippers) or grooming tasks (bathing, brushing teeth).

OTs can work on the sequencing, motor planning and motor skills (sitting, standing, walking) needed to complete these activities.

Once mastered, this can make those mornings before school much more successful and enjoyable for kids.

School readiness: When children struggle with aspects such as writing or attention this can have a huge impact on how they accomplish all the other learning that they need to do.

OTs can support children for example to develop writing skills by building strength in their hands and arms and by improving their pencil grasp and eye-hand,hand-hand coordination.

Building a child’s writing skills can boost their confidence and allow them to engage more actively in their school life.

OTs can work on enhancing a child’s attention and concentration by modifying the child’s classroom and school environment in terms of increasing/reducing visual and auditory stimulation and introducing rest periods in between.

Play skills: Play, play, play! That is what children do all day, every day and there is a reason for that. Playing is said to be the child’s major occupation.

It helps children develop social, cognitive, motor, and interactive skills. When children have trouble engaging in play it can impact all of these areas.

OTs can help children gain appropriate motor skills (both fine and gross), strength, and hand-eye coordination and self-esteem to increase your child’s ability to interact with toys and engage in play!

Social/emotional regulation: One of the greatest skills children develop is the ability to self-tune when they need to do things such as focus or engage with their peers. When children struggle with this tuning it can have a significant impact on their social and emotional well-being.

The therapy allows children to develop skills to monitor their regulation, develop better ways to regulate, and provide activities to address any sensitivities that may be impacting their regulation.

For example, some children really struggle with sound and touch so much so that it impacts their ability to engage in their classroom activities.

Also, it can help children build their tolerance and ability to process sound and tactile input to improve their ability to attend in that environment.

OTs want every child to participate in their everyday life and live life to its fullest!

The author is an Occupational Therapist based at Ilala Afya Centre, Dar es Salaam