Occupational Therapy
THE OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST
Occupational Therapists work with children to assist them to develop “skills for the job of living”.
In order to develop, promote and enhance your child’s skills the Occupational Therapist will assess a range of activities of daily living for example, self care (including dressing, feeding and toileting), productivity (play and education) and leisure (games and activities for enjoyment).
These are assessed by identifying foundation skills affecting their performance which include:
- Sensory – How your child processes and organises sensory information from their body and environment e.g. reactions to touch, sound and movement.
- Motor – Your child’s muscle strength, posture, finger grasp, in-hand manipulation, visual motor coordination, gross motor co-ordination and balance.
- Cognitive – Your child’s ability to attend on a task, problem-solve, organise themselves and plan within their environment, transfer learned skills to new situations.
- Environmental: adaptations, accessibility to your child’s environment.
Here in St.Gabriel’s Occupational Therapy intervention is carried out using a variety of approaches and is dependent on your child’s identified needs, for example:
- Group intervention, individual intervention or joint intervention with other members of the multidisciplinary team to develop functional skills as mentioned above, (sensory integration, neuro developmental treatment, etc.)
- Education- information provision to parents and other relevant professionals involved in your child’s care.
- Home – school and pre-school visits to liaise with other relevant professionals involved in your child’s care
- Home and school programmes may be provided to complement treatment sessions.
- Specialist equipment recommendations may be provided for physical needs or sensory needs e.g. seating, toileting etc. Liaison with Specialist seating clinic occurs as necessary.
- Advice on Assistive Technology for education. Liasion with Specialist assistive technology services as necessary.
- Advice on environmental adaptations in the home & educating placements e.g. wheelchair accessibility with a building
