Occupational Therapy (OT) Explained

Occupational therapy supports children and their families to gain the skills needed for everyday life. This can include self-care, participating in routines at home and school, and engaging in activities they enjoy for fun. Using research-based, individualized approaches, OT focused on what matters most to each child and family, helping to build confidence and independence to make everyday tasks a little easier.

Here are some ways that occupational therapy can support your family's goals:

Sensory Processing & Regulation

Supporting children who experience sensory processing challenges with sound, movement, touch, or visual input. Identifying ways to improve your child's regulation, focus, and participation.

Self-Care & Daily Living Skills

Building independence with daily living skills such as feeding, dressing, grooming, toileting, sleep hygiene, and executive functioning within everyday routines.

Feeding & Mealtime Skills

Supporting feeding challenges such as limited diets, sensory-based food aversions, and oral-motor skill development to support positive mealtime participation.

Fine Motor Skills Development

Developing hand and finger strength, coordination, visual-motor integration, and motor planning for everyday tasks such as writing and dressing.

Gross Motor Skills Development

Improving balance, coordination, motor planning, spatial awareness, and postural control to enable participation in activities such as play and mobility.

Executive Functioning & School Participation

Supporting skills such as attention, organization, planning, task initiation, self-regulation, and classroom engagement to promote success in school routines and learning activities.

Emotional Regulation

Supporting the ability to recognize, express, and manage emotions, develop self-regulation strategies, and maintain appropriate responses to support participation in daily activities and social interactions.

Play & Social Participation

Developing skills for engagement in play, turn-taking, functional communication, and social interaction to promote meaningful participation in peer relationships and daily activities. 

Life Skills & Community Participation

Improving independence in daily living skills such as personal care, time management, street safety, money concepts, while building confidence to engage in community activities and participate in meaningful real-world experiences.