APT

Occupational therapy treatment focuses on helping people achieve independence in all areas of their lives. Occupational therapy can help kids with various needs to improve their cognitive, physical, and motor skills and enhance their self-esteem and sense of accomplishment.

Some people think that occupational therapy is only for adults; kids after all, do not have occupations. But a child’s main job is playing and learning, and occupational therapists can evaluate kids’ skills for playing, school performance, and daily activities and compare them with what is developmentally appropriate for that age group. In order to evaluate a child, an occupational therapist may provide designed challenges that build on your child’s unique strengths and interests to build development skills such as attention span and arousal level, sensory processing skills, fine motor and gross motor skills, activities of daily living, visual-perceptual skills, handwriting, and use of assistive technology.

 

Kids who might need occupational therapy:

 

• Birth injuries or birth defects

• Sensory processing disorders

• Traumatic injuries (brain or spinal cord)

• Learning problems

• Autism/pervasive developmental disorders

• Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

• Mental health or behavioral problems

• Broken bones or other orthopedic injuries

• Post-surgical conditions

• Burns

• Spina bifida

• Traumatic amputations

• Cancer

• Sever hand injuries

• Multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and other chronic illness