Little Sprouts Therapy
Paediatric Occupational Therapy ServicesHelping every child overcome life’s challenges.
What Is Paediatric Occupational Therapy?
Paediatric Occupational Therapy has a focus on specific children displaying various developmental delays which may, or may not have a diagnosis. We help children build skills in the area of self-care, school and play. We aim to understand every child and their unique family dynamics, building resilience and capacity to engage in everyday activities.
Gross Motor
Gross motor skills are the ability for a child to attend to large movements such as running and jumping. To perform gross motor skills proficiently a child is required to have an appropriate base of support. Gross motor skills are also imperative to enable a child to sit and engage in table top activities. When a child does not have a strong base support, the ability to concentrate and sit up straight in a chair can be difficult. Due to these challenges table top work can be fatiguing and take a significant amount of concentration, therefore becoming a distraction to complete requested tasks.
Occupational therapy can help build a child’s gross motor ability, through implementation of a specialised program to increase core and whole body strength. In response to various formal and informal assessments, we create unique exercise programs best suited to the needs of each individual child.
Fine Motor
Fine motor skills are the ability for a child to attend to more intricate activities across the course of the day. These activities could include handwriting, using a knife and fork, and manipulating small items such as buttons and zips. It is important to ensure that a child is proficient in these activities to support independence and learning development. A child’s fine motor capabilities, are often an impacting factor that can reduce their ability to engage in fundamental activities, within home and school environments.
Occupational therapy can help build a child’s fine motor ability, through implementation of a specialised program to increase hand/finger strength and the ability to manipulate small objects. In response to various formal and informal assessments, we create unique exercise programs best suited to the needs of each individual child.
Social Skills and Play
A child’s play is considered their ‘occupation’. Play is a foundational skill required for a child’s development. From a young age a child starts to learn about the world through play. Play enables a child to build communication and their creative and imaginative thinking. As a child matures, play is the foundational skill to promote appropriate social skills. Turn taking and sharing are early developed social skills, which further develop to making and maintaining friendships. There are significant skills required to enable proficiency in social interactions, these include but are not limited to, a child’s play interest and ability to regulate their emotions.
Occupational therapy can help build a child’s play and social skills, through implementation of a specialised program to increase peer awareness, learning to take turns, lose at a game and sharing. In response to various formal and informal assessments, we create unique play based and social experiences, to expose a child to identified challenges within social interactions.
Sensory
Every child is unique in how they process sensory information. A child has seven “sense” types that receive input, these include; visual, sound, taste, smell, touch, body awareness and balance. The brain is constantly receiving and filtering information from these senses, to determine if a reaction needs to be executed. However, some children are oversensitive to some or all of their sensory input and therefore may appear to have an exaggerated response of avoidance (e.g. loud noises, food textures, light). Other children can be unresponsive to sensory input and therefore crave more input to support an optimal level of arousal (e.g. excessive movement such as bouncing, spinning, hand manipulation). Each child has a different optimal level of arousal that supports their ability to concentrate, engage and independently complete everyday activities.
Occupational therapy can help support a child’s sensory processing needs, through implementation of strategies to assist a child to overcome or redirect sensory problematic behaviours. In response to various formal and informal assessments, we create individual strategies for each child, with the goal to either desensitise those areas that are over stimulated, and provide appropriate input when areas are under stimulated.
Self-care
Most children want to be independent in self-care, however for various reasons some children are challenged to successfully complete these tasks. Self-care tasks such as, feeding (e.g. using a knife and fork, increasing food intake), dressing, toileting, showering and brushing teeth require significant underlying skills that may require intentional teaching.
Occupational therapy can help support a child’s ability to self-care. In response to various formal and informal assessments, we can determine underlying issues preventing a child from successfully completing self-care tasks and provide strategies to implement within the home environment. Using a step by step model, we build a child’s skill level, celebrating each step of the process, whether it is feeding, toileting, dressing, etc.
Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation is the ability to control emotions appropriately, even when situations become unfavourable or out of control. Social interactions such as, losing at playing a game, waiting for a turn or sharing preferred items can cause emotional outbursts for some children. As a child matures, there is an expectation that they understand the dynamics of their emotions and those of others. However, some children struggle with the unpredictability of life and unfavourable outcomes. They are overwhelmed when the environment appears out of their control and as a result lose the ability to control their emotions appropriately.
Occupational therapy can help support a child’s emotional development and put strategies in place to help understand their emotions and the emotions of others. In response to various formal and informal assessments, we explore the child’s environments and various triggers that occur prior to emotional outbursts. Once triggers are recognised, we can explore options available within the environment that will support the child to emotionally de-escalate and express emotions appropriately.
Don’t Wait Any Longer. Start Forging Your Child’s Path Today!
So we can assist you better please be sure to include as much information that is relevant for the consideration of your child. Information that would be relevant could be DOB, medical diagnosis, funding accessed and current concerns.