What is Occupational Therapy?

What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational Therapy is used to help individuals overcome challenges that may prevent them from completing activities important to them, these activities are called activities of daily living, or occupations. Occupational therapy in paediatrics assesses how conditions or difficulties are affecting a child’s activities of daily living, or in other words, their occupations. Occupations can be anything from getting washed and dressed, to their handwriting, or playing football with friends. In this case, Dyspraxia may make activities of daily living harder for individuals, which means children just need more time and sometimes more help to complete these activities. To help this process, Occupational Therapists work with patients and their families to consider what is most important to the patient and decide on activities or resources to help an individual access their occupations. For children, this may include handwriting therapy to improve handwriting skills if you are struggling in school, or help with self-care activities such as dressing, doing buttons, zips or shoelaces if they are struggling to complete these tasks independently.

How can Occupational Therapy assess my needs?

You may be referred to Occupational therapy through the GP, paediatrician, school or privately to seek an assessment for dyspraxia. Before conducting a formal assessment for dyspraxia, the Occupational Therapist will often have an initial assessment, which is a first meeting where they will ask both the parent and child about their concerns. They may ask the child to complete some activities in session to help them understand their abilities, and from this will decide whether to conduct a standardised, formal assessment.

Dyspraxia can be diagnosed through formal assessments, often carried out by Occupational Therapists or Physiotherapists. Once dyspraxia is diagnosed, they can help arrange therapy activities to make activities easier and more accessible.

One way in which Occupational Therapists may try to assess for a diagnosis of dyspraxia is through a Movement ABC for children. This is a standardised assessment which assesses fine motor skills, throwing and catching, and balance, meaning it is done the same way every time, and scored the same way to provide official evidence for a diagnosis.

The scores assess how in need a child is of interventions attaining to the areas mentioned above, and are used as an indication of dyspraxia for diagnosis. Other non-standardised assessments may be done before or at a later date, such as writing activities, gross motor skill analysis and practical tasks such as doing buttons and shoelaces.

From this assessment, the Occupational Therapist will be able to understand what the individual’s needs are, and will be able to tailor a treatment plan specifically to this. Different people, although they share the same diagnosis of dyspraxia, will have different needs and activities they find challenging. Identifying treatment goals with the child and the family can help the Occupational Therapist plan treatments to help the child work towards and achieve the activities important to them.

How can Occupational Therapy help?

When taking part in occupational therapy sessions during treatment, various activities may be used according to your child’s needs. Possible activities may include:

• Fine motor control activities: o Squeezing clothespin o Playing with water guns o Putting coins into piggy bank o This aims to help improve hand dexterity (ability to move hand and fingers), by working on hand muscle strength, independent finger movements, thumb opposition, arching the palm of the hand, and in-hand manipulations (moving an object from palm of hand to fingers). • Gross motor skill activities: o Throwing and catching to improve coordination o Shoulder presses and chair presses to improve upper limb and shoulder strength, as well as increase brain’s awareness of limbs (this is called proprioception) • Handwriting activities: o Fluency patterns to improve pencil fluency (ability to move pencil continuously) o Dot to dots

There are many other activities that may be used, that your occupational therapist will talk you through as it is applicable to your child’s needs. The best part is that your child can do these activities at home too, your occupational therapist will most likely provide resources to parents and school to encourage the completion of activities in between therapy sessions to get the best out of therapy.