There are lots of reasons that parents should consider occupational therapy for children. These benefits include developmental therapies helping children meet their age-level goals.
Gross Motor Skill Benefits Provided by Occupational Therapy for Children
There are many reasons why children are in occupational therapy. One of the biggest reasons is that children are having trouble with their developmental goals. Among those developmental issues that arise are motor skills. Motor skills are defined as either gross or fine motor skills, and it is important to understand the differences. Gross motor skills involve the large muscles of the body. This is using the arms and the legs to do work. Generally, children that struggle with gross motor skill development will have ambulatory issues and will maybe have some coordination problems. They may have issues with weight distribution. These show up in areas like sports and play. Occupational therapies will help this. Another area in which occupational therapy will help is fine motor skills. These are the skills that come with the smaller muscles. In the sense of doing smaller things like writing and using instruments – for example, the muscles in the fingers – occupational therapy gets children where they need to be in this particular zone.
Sensory Therapies Through Occupational Therapy
The rationale behind using sensory therapy for children is all about making sure that children are properly understanding how to process different types of stimuli and respond appropriately. There are several aspects to this, and using occupational therapy is critical to getting a child to hit their age level norms. There are a lot of different criteria to consider when it comes to processing stimuli. Visual stimuli are quite different than aural stimuli as well as tactile stimuli. While processing the first two examples comes with different considerations, it is important to think about the differences with tactile stimuli. Gross and fine motor skills are essential for processing the tactile stimuli. This is how children are helped with doing the necessary tasks for success in places like the classroom. There will be a series of different exercises along with having children talk out what they are trying to do. This process helps the therapists process a child’s concerns and get them the help they need to succeed. Studies show that using occupational therapy for children provides many benefits and helps children achieve these age-based milestones.