The ABCs of Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapists are healthcare providers that work with people of all ages to help them do the things they WANT, NEED and MUST do throughout their life. These things may include dressing, toileting, grooming, social participation and education, play and leisure activities. Occupational therapists use a holistic lens to identify and find fun strategies to improve fine motor skills, visual motor skills, coordination and more. At Family Achievement Center, our occupational therapists treat children and adults for a wide variety of reasons. To help highlight the broad scope of things that occupational therapists do, we have created the ABCs of Occupational Therapy!

A-Attention: OTs help children develop the skills they need to attend to their activities such as academics, play, or self-cares.

B-Body Awareness:  The ability of a child to use their arms and legs in a coordinated way impacts the way they move through the environment.

C-Cutting and Coloring: Fine motor skills involve the coordinated movement of small muscles in the hands and fingers. These skills are integral for tasks such as writing, drawing, buttoning clothes, and using utensils.

D- Daily Living Activities: OTs focus on helping children engage in or improve their self-care tasks and activities such as brushing teeth, household chores, and getting ready for bed.

E- Emotional Regulation: Emotional regulation or self-regulation is the ability to regulate our emotions and feelings.  This involves resisting highly emotional reactions, calming yourself down, and having the ability to adjust expectations.

F- Feeding: Occupational Therapists help children across the life span with feeding skills. OTs can address the coordination and sensory components of feeding and trying new foods.

G- Grasp: OTs can help children develop appropriate grasp and the strength needed to use and manipulate items such as silverware, scissors and writing utensils.

H- Heavy Work: Heavy work is a type of proprioceptive input that gives us feedback about our body position and movement. Proprioceptive receptors are located in our muscles and joints and respond to heavy work activities such as pushing, pulling, lifting, or deep pressure. OTs work with children and adults to find the right balance of heavy work input.

I- Independence: OTs do everything they can to help children grow in their independence. Whether it be for tying shoes, washing hands, or eating a meal, our OTs help give children the tools they need to be as independence as possible!

J-Just Right Challenge: OTs provide children with the “just right challenge” which are tasks that challenge skills that work the body and the brain but also allow children to experience success. “Just right challenges” are a great way to improve and challenge developmental skills.

K-Kinesthesia: The kinesthetic sense helps us know how to move our body effectively to carry out a variety of daily activities. The kinesthetic system works with the proprioceptive system to plan and execute motor tasks. OTs work with children to improve their kinesthetic sense and therefore improve functional participation.

L-Learning: OTs promote continuous learning by teaching new skills, providing appropriate supports, facilitating the “just right challenge”, and accepting mistakes as a way to grow.

M-Modifications: OTs are experts in modifying activities based on individual needs and skills. These modifications can be a part of therapy or ideas for home or school (seating, adaptive equipment).

N-Nervous System: The nervous system is comprised of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and peripheral nervous system (nerves). This system is important for how we sense and interpret sensory input from the world around us and within our own bodies. OTs work with children and adults to help improve nervous system functioning.

O-Occupations: Occupations are everyday activities that people do that bring meaning and purpose to their lives. For children, this can be school, sports and play. For adults, this may be their job, caring for the families and/or volunteer activities.

P-Play: Play is a child’s occupation. OTs can help children develop the skills needed for play such as social skills, taking turns, fine motor skills.

Q-Quality of Life: Occupational Therapy is dedicated to enhancing individuals’ quality of life across diverse contexts and circumstances. Whether it’s regaining independence after an injury, adapting to a chronic condition, or navigating life transitions, OT empowers individuals to live fulfilling and meaningful lives. By focusing on strengths, abilities, and aspirations, Occupational Therapy fosters resilience, autonomy, and well-being.

R-Reflex Integration: Integration of primitive reflexes is important for development.  Practicing specific movements can help create new neural pathways. Occupational therapy can be utilized as a primitive reflex integration program to help a child practice specific movement patterns to retrain their brain.

S-Sensory Processing: We all have 8 sensory systems and we use them throughout the day.  Sensory processing is our body’s and brains ability to take in sensory input, make sense of it, and use it functionally. Some people have difficulty processing this information and OTs can help develop skills to better process sensory information to make interacting with the world easier and more enjoyable.

T-Transitions: The process of change or beginning something new. Transitions between activities or transitions throughout the day (leaving for school or transitioning from playtime to bedtime) can be challenging. OTs come up with strategies to improve transition times.

U-Upper Extremity Strength: OTs work with children to promote upper body strength to help develop and support the muscles of the arms, hands, and fingers. Upper extremity strength is important for a variety of activities including self-cares, academic work, sports, and play.

V-Vestibular: Our vestibular system is all about movement. While some people can be sensitive to vestibular sensations (motion sickness or difficult playing on the playground) others may seek out movement (spinning, crashing or climbing) and this can interfere with participation in various activities. OTs provide interventions that improve vestibular processing.

W-Writing: OTs help children develop pre-writing skills, strokes, letter formation, being able to write names, and progressing to writing sentences and paragraphs and potentially learning cursive.

X-Cross Body Activities: Cross body or bilateral coordination is when you use both sides of your body together to complete a task. People use this regularly for things like dressing or play activities. OTs can help develop or refine bilateral coordination skills.

Y-Yoga: Yoga can be used to work on strengthening, coordination and body awareness. Yoga can also help with breathing and calming.

Z-Zippers:  OTs can help kids develop fine motor skills, visual motor skills and bilateral coordination skills needed for tasks like zippers and tying shoes.

 

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