When to Consult a Pediatric Occupational Therapist?
What is occupational therapy
 Occupational therapy (OT) is an allied health profession that involves the therapeutic use of everyday activities or occupations, to treat the physical, mental, developmental, and emotional ailments that impact a patientâs ability to perform day-to-day tasks. Occupational therapy helps to improve cognitive, physical, and motor skills of the children to make them more independent and self-sufficient.
First, let's discuss about the meaning of Occupational therapy. Occupational therapy is branch of medical science that focuses on helping people of different ages to get back to their Occupation. Here occupation doesn't only mean the vocation but it means the various functional activities we do everyday which occupies our time and the one which are important for the smooth running of our day to day life.Â
For an adult it could be making them get back to their vocation, making them do their Activity of daily living independently and so on.Â
DOES YOUR CHILD NEED OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY?
WHAT CHALLENGES DOES YOUR CHILD EXPERIENCE? Does your child have difficulties with day-to-day activities at home, school, or in the community? Do they experience challenges that do not affect most typically developing children?
Your children facing some problems in early age just like neck holding issue, difficulty sitting, ball kicking, cycling, difficulty in climbing stairs, or when they starts to go to school they facing problems in writing, copy to blackboard making a friends & play with them, they canât do that because their mental development is not proper make. But these can be solved with occupational therapy.Â
Paediatric Occupational Therapy
Paediatric occupational therapy helps children to achieve independence in all areas of daily living by addressing their physical, sensory, or cognitive challenges. Treatment consists of pleasant and productive activities led by methodologies such as sensory integration therapy, neurodevelopmental treatment, and biomechanical and behavioral frames of reference.
Children's occupational therapy
Children's occupational therapy help children to achieve their optimal physical development. Treatment may involve soft tissue massage, mobilization, stretching, specific therapeutic exercises and postural correction.
If at any stage a kid is experiencing any issues regarding any of their Occupations, they should be brought to an Occupational therapist. An Occupational therapist will do a thorough assessment of the kid considering various domains like sensory, gross motor, fine motor, physical, cognitive, perceptual, psychosocial, adl, academics etc. And accordingly prepare a plan to treat that particular issue either by remediation, adaptions or education.
Best Occupational therapist uses various techniques such as sensory integration, neurodevelopmental therapy, pNF, etc. To make the child independent in their life.
What Is Autism?
Autism is a common term that is used in describing a group of complex and crucial brain development disorders or defects that are known as Pervasive Development Disorders. The autism patients might lack some of the basic social as well as personal skills that are required for independent living; the experts in occupational therapy have created technologies that work on all of these types of needs.
Benefits of occupational therapy for autism
Occupational therapists can help kids with autism to navigate their environment and to attend to their everyday activities more successfully. Keep reading to find out more about the kinds of interventions and strategies OTs utilize in their work with autistic clients.
When utilised with autistic people, occupational therapy aims to improve the individual's overall success in all parts of life. This is performed by teaching and modifying daily living skills, resulting in improved independence. It is hoped that by training and practising these abilities,the kid would eventually be able to do things on his or her own, such as:
Focus on academic tasks
Maintain reciprocal relationships
Engage in cooperative play
Manage self-regulation
Express emotions appropriately
Delay gratification
Cerebral palsy and occupational therapy
Physical therapy, Occupational Therapy (OT), and Speech Therapy are the most commonly used therapies for people with cerebral palsy. Therapists from these disciplines provide different types of specialized therapies depending on the problem and treatment goals
An occupational therapist may be able to help by.
Improving a childâs ability to move, so that the child can grasp and release objects and learn how to write
Facilitate fine-motor exercises, so that the child can learn how to participate in play with other children and participate in games and sport activities
Help with barriers to achieving personal independence, such as personal hygiene, getting dressed, eating and drinking, and mobility around the house
Address behavioral problems, such as bursts of anger, depression, and feelings of loneliness or hopelessness
Training parents and children on how to use specialized equipment to help improve the personâs quality of life
Provide recommendations on how specialized equipment like wheelchairs, bath modifications, dressing devices, communication aids, and other equipment might help.
Neurodevelopmental Treatment: Effectively used in spastic, ataxic, and athetoid cerebral palsy, diplegic cerebral palsy, hemiplegia, traumatic brain injury, & stroke.
Occupational therapy plays very important role in the rehabilitation of adult neurological conditions such as in
Stroke (hemiplegia / hemiparesis)
Traumatic brain Injury
Spinal Cord Injury
Parkinsonâs Disease
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Occupational therapy has important role in the rehabilitation of orthopaedic conditions such as in:
Low Back Pain
Cervical Spondylosis
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Osteoarthritis
Ankylosing Arthritis
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Post Fracture Rehabilitation
Please one thing keep in mind
Those who have O.T. professional, they mostly learn by watching, they donât know the reason behind the activity they are doing.
He or she should know before doing any activity with any childâs neurologic basic, medical basic. Before giving a hand, you should know what is done after O.T. activity. Â
Remember that all children are different and develop these skill sets at their own space. However, if you think your child may be struggling with adopting some of the skill areas above, you can contact a best professional experienced occupational therapist.















