The Role of Occupational Therapy

Learn all about occupational therapy and the wonderful benefits it adds to your child’s development

How Can Occupational Therapy Support Your Child?

An Occupational Therapist’s (OT) role is to work alongside a child, their family and the team around them to maximise a child’s engagement, achievements, and independence in all activities and routines. These include school, play and self-care (feeding, dressing and toileting).

Areas Covered by the Occupational Therapist

OT’s that work with children are trained to identify and remediate delayed development in the following areas:

  • Play - Is known by OT’s at the central domain for children and the essential focus when working with children. OT’s help children progress their play and use play as the tool to develop other areas.

  • Social Skills - Are a child’s abilities to play and interact with their peers. Many children have difficulty entering into play with their peers, negotiating and dealing with conflict with their peers. OT’s help them develop skills to manage these situations by modelling, reading stories, and role-playing social scenarios.

  • Attention and engagement - Is the ability to attend to a task for a period of time. This is of key importance to enable a child them to learn any skill.

  • Gross Motor Skills - How a child plans, sequences and coordinates their big and small body movements within their environments. TSH OT's focus on strength, stamina and coordination of the body’s muscles and skill development for everyday tasks.

  • Fine Motor Skills - How a child uses their fingers, hands and upper limbs. This includes handwriting, using two hands together, grasping and hand dominance.

Areas supported by OT. Reference: https://everymomentcounts.org/about/about-occupational-therapy/
  • Sensory Processing Skills - How a child uses their eight senses to learn about their body and the things in their environment.  The OT looks at how children are processing and regulating their senses, providing strategies to help with managing their behavioural response.

  • Perceptual Skills - How a child’s brain sees objects including size, shape, colour, same and difference, distance, space and memory (e.g. puzzles, sequencing and matching games). These are important skills for learning to write, read, and organise our brain and body.

  • Self-Care Skills - How a child feeds and dresses themselves and manages hygiene. Every child needs to learn self-care skills to become independent. Most self-care skills rely on the integration and development of many of the areas outlined above.

  • Confidence - A child’s inner belief about their capabilities. A more confident child is more likely to try activities that are new or seem daunting to them. OT's can use a variety of approaches to improve confidence, for example, by using an activity that increases a child's awareness of the things they are good at, rather than focusing on things they can't.

How OT works at Telethon Speech & Hearing

OT’s work in all programs across Telethon Speech & Hearing. OT’s work with families in:

  • Talkabout

  • Chatterbox

  • Outpost

  • Private OT

  • Onslow

OT’s work closely with each child and family to provide the best service they can. Working within group programs and individually, OT’s complete:

  • Assessments.

  • Collaborate with families to create goals and strategies to maximise participation and independence.

  • Complete individual and small group intervention depending on the program.

  • Parent information sessions.

  • Consult with teachers and other therapists within TSH and outside agencies.

  • Providing information for trans-disciplinary reports, NDIS reports and continuums.

Find Out More

Need more information? Make an enquiry with our friendly team to find out more about occupational therapy for your child:

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© 2022 Telethon Speech & Hearing Ltd.

Telethon Speech & Hearing acknowledges and thanks all individuals and organisations for their support of our centre, including: Channel 7 Telethon Trust, Channel 7 and The West Australian

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