04/03/2025
🎉 Happy Occupational Therapy Month! 🎉
WHAT is pediatric OT, anyway??
Children have jobs just like adults! Pediatric OT helps infants and children reach their maximal potential to live life to the fullest!
A child’s occupation is made up of a variety of everyday activities, such as playing, learning, getting dressed, writing their name, brushing their teeth, walking, crawling, and feeding themselves! Occupational therapy helps children be as independent as possible.
Below are just a few of the areas pediatric occupational therapy can benefit children:
— coordination — for a child it is important for all areas of life including: self feeding, handwriting, riding a bike, and several other activities! There are different types of coordination such as fine motor coordination (small movements of the hand), gross motor coordination (larger body movements) and motor planning (how the brain and body work together to coordinate movements).
— visual motor integration — involves the coordination of the child’s body movements and visual skills. Examples would include cutting, tying shoes, putting on a jacket, and catching a ball.
— strength — is an important component for children to successfully accomplish everyday tasks. Some children with decreased strength will fatigue quickly when performing a simple handwriting task because their hand strength is below age level.
— sensory processing— involves how a person perceives information from their senses, such as, sight, taste, and sound. An example would be a child who dislikes wearing certain clothing because if the way they feel on their body.
— self care — is the ability to take care of one’s self. (Dressing, bathing, zip up zippers, or button buttons).
— social skills — are important for children to learn in order to relate and communicate with their peers, parents and teachers.
— cognition — relates to how the brain thinks, processes, and learns. Some specific areas of cognition include attention, sequencing activities, time management, memory, problem solving, following directions and decision making.
