12/17/2025
Home-based occupational therapy is often more effective than school-based OT—and it makes people uncomfortable.
Schools are built for compliance, efficiency, and academics—not nervous system regulation. Bright lights, rigid schedules, noise, and constant demands overwhelm many children before therapy even begins.
Home-based OT meets children where life actually happens:
morning routines, emotional meltdowns, homework struggles, sleep, and family dynamics. Skills practiced in real environments stick—because they’re lived, not rehearsed.
It also centers parents as part of the therapeutic process, not observers. When caregivers understand their child’s nervous system and are coached in real time, progress accelerates and generalizes naturally.
This isn’t a criticism of school-based therapists—it’s a reality of overloaded systems with limits on time, space, and individualization.
Children don’t need more compliance.
They need safety, regulation, and support in the environments that shape them most.
Therapy works best where life happens.