Deciphering a child’s developmental needs and understanding their struggles can also be challenging. From areas such as coordination to motor skills and the need for normal emotional regulation, it is pretty significant to know how every child learns, adapts, and develops at their own pace. Occupational Therapy Benefits!

Their learning and development trajectory might not be the same. Still, with early intervention and comprehensive treatment that involves the proper guidance and techniques, the child can lead a happy, fulfilling life where everyday tasks are performed with precision, care, confidence, independence, and joy. That’s where occupational therapy comes in.

At Theracare Pediatric Services, we specialize in helping children and their families thrive, providing expert occupational and physical therapy services that make a difference through personalized care. The comprehensive guide covers six common signs that indicate why intervening with the proper guidance and techniques could let them benefit most from occupational therapy.

Occupational Therapy: What is It?

Occupational therapy focuses on the comprehensive development of an individual, from building to recovery and enhancement of the skills that are prerequisites for completing their routine activities. For adults, this may involve tasks such as cooking, driving, or caring for children. For children, their occupations center around play, skill development, and learning activities necessary for independence, such as getting dressed, brushing their teeth, or tying their shoes.

For children, pediatric occupational therapy could lead to positive results mainly:

• Learn to walk and crawl.
• Development of fine motor skills, including writing, drawing, and feeding.
• Gross motor skills include balance, climbing, and running.
• Establishing perfect hand-eye coordination.
• Focusing on self-care routines, from dressing to personal hygiene and maintenance.
• Taking care of emotional regulation and sensory processing.
• Impacting physical stability, maintaining core strength, and balance.

Pediatric occupational therapy enables every child to achieve a sense of freedom and confidence by reaching the right developmental milestones at the appropriate age. With therapies explicitly tailored to suit an individual’s needs, offering the proper guidance and techniques, gradual yet consistent progress can be seen, thus enhancing their everyday life.

6 Signs Your Child Could Benefit From Occupational Therapy

1. Difficulty Meeting Developmental Milestones

A key indicator to signify a consistent path to progress when crossing the various growth stages of the child. Acting as the benchmark for indicating physical, cognitive, and emotional development. Here are a few important milestones:

• Crawling typically begins around 6-9 months.
• By 18-24 months, children often start feeding themselves with a spoon.

If the child struggles to meet these milestones, there is undoubtedly an underlying developmental delay. Intervening early through targeted pediatric occupational therapy could address these challenges. A guiding light to match your child’s progress to that of his peers, these therapies particularly ensure these children are not left behind in any aspect of life.

FACT CHECK:

Did you know? Research indicates that early intervention can significantly enhance long-term outcomes for children with developmental delays.

2. Struggling With Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skills encompass small, precise movements that primarily involve the hands and fingers. These skills enable the child to perform various tasks, including writing, using scissors, or picking up small objects. There can be cases where delayed fine motor skills could lead to challenges, including:

• Handwriting
• Using eating utensils
• Buttoning up shirts or tying shoelaces

Working with the child on a set of exercises to target while in the session, the therapist would keep the child engaged in daily activities. These exercises would focus on building finger strength, improving hand-eye coordination, and developing and refining the precision required for this task.

3. Working to Improve Gross Motor Skills

Fine motor skills are all about small movements. Gross motor skills focus on larger body movements, including those dedicated to maintaining strength, coordination, and balance. From running to climbing stairs or jogging, occupational therapists focus on addressing these areas systematically.

You will notice that your child gradually:

• Finds difficulty maintaining balance.
• Struggles to catch, climb, or throw.
• The child tires too quickly.

Without a strong core and foundation, the gross motor challenges your child faces might indirectly affect necessary movements that require strength, coordination, and balance. A child with a weaker core is assisted here by occupational therapists who apply proper techniques and training to strengthen their child’s overall development.

4. Struggle With Sensory Processing

Children often struggle with sensory processing at a young age. This refers to how the brain organizes and interprets the information from the environment. Children with sensory processing difficulties usually become overly sensitive to external stimuli. The reverse is also possible when there is no sensing or response to any trigger, also referred to as under-responsiveness.

Signs of sensory processing challenges include:

• Not letting themselves into crowded places.
• Resistance to being touched.
• Not usually reacting to light, sounds, or smells.
• Dislike clothing textures, seams, and tags.
• Not easily calming down to situations that excite.

Helping your child build tolerance for sensory inputs, these tried-and-tested occupational therapies can instill the patience to tackle overwhelming situations. Regular and thorough practice, combined with consistent sessions, can help build confidence to cope with any problem at home, at school, or in other social settings.

5. Struggling with Self-Care Habits

Difficulty in coping with the challenges associated with daily self-care habits, such as dressing, brushing teeth, or washing hands, can be tricky for children learning these skills, even if they seem simple to a normal adult. Navigating through such issues requires early intervention with the right strategies to address them. Some examples of the early signs of these could be:

• A preschool child finds it challenging to manipulate buttons or zippers
• Early graders need support when tying their shoes.

Timely intervention with the right strategies would not only enable the child to be independent and confident enough to tackle self-care habits with ease but also hone those skills with flawlessness.

Setting up for greater involvement in social and educational environments, a robust strategy followed by a continued focus on the right therapies will enable your child to master self-care skills with ease. Once mastered, your child would excel in the peer group, holding competency in the circle.

6. Challenges Regulating Their Emotions

Seeing your child throw frequent tantrums, with a tendency not to sit back or calm down when upset, could signal struggles with emotional regulation. Suppose your child is intensely upset without an apparent reason and cannot resist a barrage of overwhelming emotions or calm themselves down after stressful situations. In that case, they certainly benefit from the therapy.

An occupational therapist is a trained professional and a veteran who would work with your child to make them more confident in regulating their emotional trauma. From identifying triggers that lead to emotional outbursts to implementing self-calming techniques, occupational therapy works closely with the child and their parents to provide treatments that help reduce challenges and stress for both the child and the family.

The following actions could be performed in the due course of the therapy:

• Helping your child express their feelings in a healthier and more controlled manner.
• Developing practical self-calming techniques.
• Digging out triggers that lead to emotional outbursts.

Empower Your Child With Expert Care

Intervening early, recognizing that a stage has been reached where occupational therapy would work wonders for your child. Occupational therapy is the first step to thrive. From struggling to meet developmental milestones to facing challenges with underdeveloped sensory processing skills, if your child finds doing everyday tasks challenging and is troubled by dealing with emotional outbursts, occupational therapy is a proven solution.

At Theracare Pediatric Services, we’re here to walk this journey with you, offering compassionate, individualized support for your child’s growth and well-being. Our team of licensed professionals uses evidence-based techniques to address your child’s specific needs in a nurturing, family-focused environment.

Take the first step today: Learn more about how our services can support your child by visiting Theracare Pediatric Services and scheduling a consultation with our care team.