What is Occupational Therapy​ / OT

In general, OT is a holistic approach to helping individuals to gain independence with daily life activities.  We call these ADLs (activities of daily living).   OT works with premies and infants all the way to the elderly.

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With infants and kids, OTs work on a variety of skills from dressing, feeding, and every day life skills, to fine motor, visual motor, sensory processing concerns, large motor skills and play.  OTs work with kids who have a variety of diagnosed and undiagnosed needs such as Autism spectrum, developmental delay, cognitive delays, sensory processing disorder, spina bifida, down syndrome, cerebral palsy.

Occupation or ADLs for children are play, self-care, learning/school work, social interactions, communication, functional mobility, so it’s a bit of everything.  In OT we also look at problem solving and attention and how the role of the child’s physical and social environment impact their performance.  Similar to all therapies we may have the same goals for different children, but they will all have different underlying deficits that we are working on to reach that goal.  OTs are typically very good at problem solving and modification.