Occupational therapists see beyond diagnoses and limitations to hopes and aspirations. They look at relationships between the activities you do every day – your occupations – alongside the challenges you face and your environment. Occupational therapy (OT) is largely known to be a creative profession both as a practice and in its use of creative activities for the benefit of clients. Occupational therapists (OTs) offer practical advice and support to help people carry out their daily activities. Their work centers on adapting a person’s environment so that it better suits them and the things they want and need to do. OTs work with people of all ages.

Common examples of what they do include:

  • helping people going through physical changes to carry on working
  • helping people experiencing changes in how they think or remember things to carry on working
  • helping children with disabilities fully participate in school
  • helping people with disabilities take part in social situations, hobbies, or sports
  • work with the person and their family to identify their goals
  • design a custom intervention, or plan, that will help the person perform their everyday activities and reach their goals
  • check to see whether the person is meeting their goals and make any necessary changes to the plan

 

What is the role of an Occupational Therapist with children?

 

Occupational therapists working with children are trying to determine where delays or limitations are coming from, especially in the areas of fine motor skills, cognitive skills, social development, and establishing self-care routines.

Why Might My Child Need to See an Occupational Therapist?

Children see occupational therapists for a variety of reasons including:

  • Delays in fine motor skills
  • Help developing visual motor skills – tracking an object, hand-eye coordination
  • Cognitive delays including problem-solving skills, memory, and attention
  • Children with sensory integration issues
  • Delays in play and social interaction skills
  • Help with learning basic self-care tasks, such as getting dressed

 

What is Sensory Integration Therapy?

 

Sensory integration is the process through which we sense the world around us. We use our sensory organs to receive information and, on a higher level, we organize it so we understand our surroundings and respond appropriately. To sum it all up: we perceive, organize, modulate and interpret sensory information.

Most people don’t realize that breakdowns in sensory processing can affect:

  • behavior
  • communication
  • function
  • successful participation in daily life

 

When we hear the buzz of a bee near our head, we immediately swat in an attempt to avoid being bitten. The smell of burning in the kitchen alerts us to the possibility of a fire and we act in order to prevent danger.

It is important to realize that there are more than just the five senses that most of us are familiar with.

Information is taken in from:

  • Touch
  • Smell
  • Vision
  • Hearing
  • Taste
  • Vestibular
  • Internal organs (interoception)
  • Proprioceptive receptors

 

Vestibular receptors are responsible for detecting changes in position in space, balance, and movement.

Interoception involves the internal regulation responses in our body such as hunger, thirst, blood pressure, and even toileting urges.

 

  • Smell
  • Vision
  • Hearing
  • Taste
  • Vestibular
  • Internal organs (interoception)
  • Proprioceptive receptors

 

Vestibular receptors are responsible for detecting changes in position in space, balance, and movement. Proprioceptive receptors provide information about body awareness, position, and posture. Interoception involves the internal regulation responses in our body such as hunger, thirst, blood pressure, and even toileting urges.

OTs have the clinical knowledge to design sensory experiences specific to the child. It may start with a certain form of sensory stimulation to elicit the desired response. While every session will be different depending on your child’s needs here is an example session with some sensory integration therapy activities.

The OT may begin the treatment session with an obstacle course which the child views as a fun challenge. However, the course was carefully designed to provide sensory input to her joints and calm the pressure on the child’s body. Large motor, and physical activities that are organized to the senses, the OT may include playing in ball pits to target the tactile system. The purpose of this sensory stimulation is to regulate and prepare her system for the next activity.

Next comes a fun puzzle. However, the puzzle pieces may be placed into a sticky or wet substance such as slime or water beads placed into a bin. The child often has so much fun playing the game that he/she forgets she’s placing her hands into the very thing he/she doesn’t like! With this sensory experience, now the child is starting to adapt hyper-responsively to the messy texture.

Common items seen in clinics where occupational therapists use sensory integrative techniques include swings, trampolines, soft brushes, and scooters.

While the room may look like a play place or a gym setting, sensory integration therapy requires training and education that the OT must obtain in order to perform therapy safely and effectively.

“OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY IS WHERE SCIENCE, CREATIVITY, AND COMPASSION COLLIDE.”