Occupational Therapy Services
Occupational Therapy commonly supports children with developmental delay/s and those with a diagnoses such as autism, intellectual impairment and physical disability.
Self-care
- Toileting- learning to use the toilet for wees and poos, faecal incontinence (soiling) and constipation, urinary incontinence, enuresis (bedwetting).
- Mealtimes- eating a wider range of foods, improving family routines during mealtimes/decreasing family stress, learning to use cutlery.
- Bedtime - problems around getting to sleep and staying asleep.
- Dressing, bathing/showering, brushing teeth and going to the dentist, brushing hair and going to the hairdressers- increasing independence, managing challenging behaviours during these times.
Play
- Developing complexity of play skills to promote learning of new skills.
- Providing opportunities for play preferences, to promote wellbeing and use of strengths.
Learning
- Attention difficulties.
- Executive functioning (which is a group of cognitive skills which allows goal setting and completion of tasks) difficulties.
- Understanding information processing and learning preferences in neurodiverse children.
Fine and gross motor skills
- Prompting sensory (perceptual motor) foundations, which provide a foundation for increasing complex motor skills.
- Praxis difficulties- ideation (coming up with a plan), motor planning (figuring out how to use our body in tasks), execution (putting sequences of actions together to accomplish the goal).
- Pre-writing development and handwriting. Pencil control, letter formation, placing and spacing of letters, planning and organising content).
- Scissor skill development.
- Disability specific assistive equipment to support posture and mobility.
Emotional and behavioural regulation (understanding and managing their behaviour and reactions to feelings and situations happening around them)
- Self or co-regulation of emotions in times of stress.
- Understanding feelings- what they are called, what it feels like for them and what they do when they are experiencing them, what triggers them, and how to feel okay again.
- Participation in family and school routines.
Social interactions
- Pivotal skills such as joint engagement and back-and-forth exchanges.
- Cooperative behaviours such as turn taking and sharing.
- Negotiating conflict and problem solving with peers.
- Empathising with others and developing their understanding of others feelings/thinking.
- Coping with transitions between activities.
- Being flexible- adapting to changes within the environment, plans, place or demands.
- Managing challenging behaviours.
Sensory processing and regulation
- Understanding sensory processing patterns.
- Organising the central nervous system in response to sensory information, and decreasing responsively to sensory challenge.
