Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapist are trained health professionals who assist people to engage, participate and increase their performance in their everyday tasks. 

The therapists at Bright Minds Therapy assess your child skills in order to determine the areas impacting their engagement, participation and performance in their occupations.

Foundational Skills – gross motor, fine motor and visual skills

Foundational skill are all of the individual areas of development that are required in order to perform successfully in our everyday tasks; and include:

• Primitive reflex integration

• Balance

• Postural Strength

• Body awareness

• Motor planning,

• Crossing the midline

• Bilateral integration of the body

• Visual Perceptual Skills

• Visual Pursuits

• Concept Development

• Hand Strength

• In hand Manipulation

• Finger Isolation

• Grasp development

• Fine motor control

An occupational therapist will assesses all skills individually in order to gain an understanding of the child’s strengths and weaknesses; and identify the areas of development affecting the child’s participation and performance.

Emotional and Behavioural Development

The ability to regulate emotions effectively can be dependent on:

• Sensory processing difficulties

• Foundational skill development

• Emotional Intelligence

• Exposure to behavioural management techniques and strategies

• Neurological development

• Trauma

An occupational therapist can assist parents and teachers with supporting behavioural and emotional regualtion of a child by:

• Providing assessment and analysis of underlying reasons for behaviours

• Providing sensory strategies to help a child to better regulate their sensory system

• Assisting parents and teachers to grade and modify tasks to match the child’s skill set.

• Building self-awareness skills with targeted therapy activities

• Parent education regarding child’s difficulties and appropriate strategies

Social Skills

The ability to understand and follow social rules, and engage and interact appropriately with peers is dependent on many skills including:

• Attention regulation – ability to sustain attention throughout play activity.

• Communication – receptive and expressive language development

• Understanding body language and facial expression

• Play Skills

• Sensory and emotional regualtion – to respond appropriately to our environment and others.

• Executive functioning – higher order reasoning

• Ideation, Planning and Sequencing – in order to think of and carry out play sequences

• Foundational skills – if there is a mismatch between skills and social game/activity

An occupational therapist can help a child to develop their social skills by:

• Developing individual skills as mentioned above

• Practicing social skills in therapy environment

• Practicing social skills in context ie at school, in small groups

• Building self awareness and regualtion skills to support appropriate socialisation

• Referring to speech pathologist for language development if appropriate

Functional Skills – reading, writing and self-care

Functional Skills are the everyday tasks that children are expected to do; including:

• Reading

• Writing

• Scissor Skills

• Following Directions

• Dressing

• Eating

• Toileting

• Play Skills

An Occupational Therapist can observe and assess a child’s functional skills in order to gain a better understanding of the child’s difficulties in context within the task and environment it is conducted. 

Sensory Development

Sensory Processing is the ability to process sensory information from the outside world and within our bodies, through our sensory systems:

• Visual

• Auditory

• Tactile

• Oral/Gustatory

• Proprioception (perception of push, pull, impact through muscles and joints)

• Vestibular (movement)

An Occupational Therapist can conduct standardised and observational assessment in order to gain an understanding of a child’s sensory system, and how it is affecting their engagement and participation in daily tasks, and help to implement strategies to help the child to better regulate their sensory system.

Children with Sensory Processing difficulties often have difficulties with:

• Regulating and maintaining attention

• Following directions

• Behaving appropriately

• Transitioning between tasks and environments

• Settling to sleep

• Eating - Picky eaters

• Engaging with others appropriately

• Social skills

• Self care tasks – brushing teeth, nail clipping, hair brushing/styling.

Click the button below to make a booking or to request more information about Bright Minds Therapy for your child or school.