Children’s Occupational Therapy
Did you know that in order for your child to be ‘classroom and life ready’, no matter what their age or stage, they need their developmental and sensory skills, and abilities, to be as secure as possible?
If there are pockets of difficulty that have yet to be identified or explored within this complex foundation for life, then it follows that your child may experience challenges with their learning, their social skills and their functional successes.
For those children for whom this is relevant, it follows that the Teachers will have challenges teaching unless an understanding exists of the child’s strengths and difficulties. As a result, the child’s daily experiences can start to lack happiness, meaning or success. That’s where Children’s Occupational Therapy comes in.
So, what is Occupational Therapy and how does it work?
Occupational Therapy is a job title that may seem rather baffling. Essentially, we are ‘professional problem solvers’. We are health professionals who happen to work in and alongside educational settings and systems. Our specialists have medical, neurological, developmental, psychological and psychiatric knowledge – as well as absolutely loads of extensive experience – which enables us to identify the reason why a child may be experiencing a day-to-day difficulty in the classroom, the playground, in the community or at home. We have a very functional, ‘real life’ approach to what we do and tend to be really creative people too. Our job title and what we do are very often referred to as ‘OT’.
How do we know our child needs this?
You may have noticed that your child appears to have an underlying difficulty, which might be quite subtle, or intermittent, or has appeared to become bigger as he or she has grown older; the difficulty does not need to be glaringly obvious, although there are many cases when it may seem so. It may also be that your child’s nursery/school/college staff have suggested that seeking some additional advice would be helpful. You are your child’s expert, so if you have a concern or worry then we are here to listen to you.
We often hear that a parent has noticed that their child has a difficulty with handwriting, sitting still, listening and following instructions, playing, completing school work or with concentrating. Other challenges are to do with getting dressed (or changed for PE), self-care skills, using cutlery or tripping over fresh air. Your child may also be experiencing social challenges or be super sensitive to clothing, noises or textures of food. We do not expect you to know why, that is our job to explore and explain; in this way, we aim to help you too.
There are times when, as health professionals, our advice will contribute to diagnostic processes. Not all children, by any means, have diagnosable conditions but for some this can be relevant and therefore important to find out. We work alongside other professionals in those instances to help you ‘get to the bottom’ of what is going on for your child. We are also the ‘go-to’ profession for challenges associated with:
Developmental Coordination Disorder
ADHD and ADD
Autism
Sensory processing differences
Cerebral Palsy and other physical disabilities
Down’s Syndrome
Hypermobility, and hypotonia, and Ehler’s Danlos syndrome
What’s the process?
One of our Occupational Therapists will carry out an assessment using a range of different activities, to identify the nature or cause of the difficulty your child is experiencing. We hope your child will find this great fun! The difficulty might have a developmental or a sensory processing cause, or sometimes both. We will explore the nature and breadth of the difficulty and explain to you the ‘whys and wherefores’. We only carry out an assessment if you agree that it would be helpful to do.
We then give you and your child’s school staff (ideally) a thorough explanation of what we have discovered. The aim is that all our advice, recommendations and support will empower your child to overcome his or her obstacles in order to grow in independence and confidence. Each child’s ‘occupation’ is to go to nursery, school or college and we are here to help them to make that experience as successful as possible.
You then have further options. You can see the assessment process as a one-off consultation and can embed the advice you have been given in daily life, or you may wish to explore further support. We are able to provide targeted sessions to work with your child on the areas we feel could do with a boost of improvement. These sessions can take place either in school, at home or in the community. We can even signpost you to other members of the Now, Next & Then team if we feel their support would be a better fit… or a fit, as well.
Above all things, what we are trying to say is that we love to help children; all of them.
What can you expect?
You can expect a genuinely caring approach. We will hold your hand through our assessment processes and give you honest explanations for the developmental strengths and challenges we have identified. We know that this can be an emotional journey; for some, it can be a great relief to finally have an answer to why something is tricky, for others it can be deeply upsetting to learn that a child may have added hurdles to figuratively jump, through no fault of their own. We will tailor our approach to you and will be the listening ear. More than that, we will then provide strategies and solutions that can start to be put in place straight away. The outcome will be that you feel empowered by your new understanding of your child and your child will ‘grow’ as he or she loses the weight of confusion as to why things have been tricky until now.
Our Children’s Occupational Therapists explore and identify the developmental and sensory reasons why your child may be experiencing functional, day-to-day difficulties. We can assist with a diagnostic process (if relevant), with EHCPs where necessary, as well as providing nitty gritty help for your child to be better able to navigate daily life.