At Kids Place, our pediatric occupational therapists are dedicated to helping children develop the skills needed for everyday tasks. Whether it’s at home, school, or in the community, we aim to enhance each child’s ability to participate fully and independently.

What is Pediatric Occupational Therapy?

Pediatric occupational therapy focuses on helping children gain independence in their daily activities, improve fine motor skills, and develop sensory processing abilities. Our therapists work with children to overcome challenges related to:

Self-Care: Dressing, feeding, grooming, and toileting.
School Performance: Handwriting, using scissors, and classroom behavior.
Play: Strengthening social skills, motor planning, and creativity.
Sensory Processing: Helping children respond appropriately to sensory input such as touch, sound, and movement.

Who Can Benefit from Pediatric Occupational Therapy?

Our pediatric occupational therapy services are designed to support children with a variety of needs, including:

Developmental Delays: Assisting children who may not be reaching expected developmental milestones.
Sensory Processing Disorders: Helping children who have difficulty responding to sensory information in a typical way.
Autism Spectrum Disorder: Supporting children in developing social skills, daily routines, and coping strategies.
Learning Disabilities: Enhancing the ability to perform school-related tasks.
Physical Disabilities: Improving the ability to perform everyday tasks through adaptive techniques and tools.

What to Expect During Occupational Therapy Sessions

Our occupational therapists begin by evaluating your child’s specific needs through observation and standardized assessments. Based on this evaluation, a personalized treatment plan is developed, which may include:

Therapeutic Activities: Engaging exercises designed to improve fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and strength.
Sensory Integration Techniques: Activities that help your child process and respond to sensory input more effectively.
Adaptive Equipment: Recommendations for tools and devices that can help your child perform tasks more easily.
Parent and Caregiver Training: Education and strategies to support your child’s progress at home.

Keywords to Know:

Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)

This is the primary focus of occupational therapists. We aim to help our clients become as independent as possible in areas of self-care including playing, dressing, bathing, grooming, eating, brushing teeth and cooking, to name a few. With children, we are often teaching these skills for the first time. Mastering these skills will take a lot of practice, time and patience as well as mastery of many of the foundational skills listed below.

Fine motor skills

Fine motor skills refer to the coordinated use of your hands and fingers for functional tasks. Some tasks requiring strong fine motor skills are buttoning, zipping, writing, opening a carton of milk, brushing your teeth, and tying your shoes.

Visual motor skills

Visual motor skills involve integration of the visual system with motor movements. These skills are important for independence especially as a child reaches school age. It is crucial for reading, writing, and eye-hand coordination. If the visual system is impaired, balance, coordination, motor skills, learning and self-care are among the areas that could be affected.

Sensory processing

Sensory processing refers to a person’s ability to take information from the environment using their seven senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, movement, and position) and interpret that information to make sense of the world. When any part of this system functions in an atypical way, the person struggles to make sense of their world, which can be a scary experience. Occupational therapy can work to improve sensory processing in our kids and improve their ability to participate fully in life.

Reflexes

Primitive reflexes are automatic actions that are seen during infancy in response to stimuli. As a child transitions through developmental movement patterns these reflexes are integrated. If our reflexes are not integrated it can affect our overall movement patterns and development. Occupational therapy can work to integrate reflexes and improve functional skills.

Ideas to Promote Skill Development in Pediatric Occupational Therapy

Fine Motor/Grasping

Playing with resistive toys for hand strengthening (tweezers, tongs, play dough, Legos, sand)
Stringing beads (smaller beads for older kids) or using lacing cards
Work on thumbs-up grasp on scissors
Opening containers
Work on fasteners (buttons, zippers, snaps) on own clothes, dress-up clothes, or dolls
Coloring with small or broken crayons
Work on writing or painting at vertical/inclined surfaces to help with grasp
Craft projects (stickers, folding paper, cutting, gluing)
Animal walks, crawling, monkey bars to help strengthen shoulders and arms, and help with prewriting skills (proximal strength = distal stability)

Visual Motor Skills

Playing with puzzles
Building with blocks (building towers or copying block structures)
Prewriting skills – circles, squares, cross, tracing letters
Mazes and connect-the-dots
Play with marble toys, or ball activities (tossing and catching balls, etc.)

Sensory/Social/Emotional Regulation Skills

Practice turn-taking games
Introduce new textures during art or sensory play (sand, shaving cream, finger paint)
Allow movement breaks between seated activities

Signs Your Child May Need Occupational Therapy

Consider talking to your doctor about an occupational therapy evaluation when a child consistently demonstrates 3 or more of these items:

Age Range	Red Flag Warning Signs

6 Months – 1 Year

Lack of tolerance for diaper changing/laying on back
Feeding difficulties
Not tolerating brushing teeth
Not tolerating bath time
Excessive or no reaction to sensory input (seeing, hearing, feeling, moving, etc.)
Excessive or no emotional reaction when separating from parent
Not rolling (6-9 months)
Not sitting (6-9 months)
Not tolerating tummy time
Not reaching for toys
Not bringing feet or toys to mouth
Not following objects with eyes
Not transferring toys from one hand to another
Not putting items in/out of container
Not activating cause and effect toys
Not bringing hands together and playing with toys

1 – 2 Years

Walking on toes more than 50% of the time
Not creeping
Not crawling
Not taking socks and shoes off
Not assisting with dressing
Not tolerating grooming activities (brushing teeth/hair, bathing, nail cutting, etc.)
Excessive or no emotional reaction when separating from parent
Excessive or no reaction to sensory input (seeing, hearing, feeling, moving, etc.)
Feeding difficulties
Showing a significant hand preference
Not picking up small items with pointer finger and thumb
Not able to stack blocks
Not able to make marks on paper with a writing utensil

2 – 3 Years

Walking on toes more than 50% of the time
Poor functional play with toys
Using only one type of toy or only using toys in the same repetitive way
Inability to match shapes or colors
No interest in scribbling
Difficulty with transitions
Difficulty tolerating a variety of textures (finger-paint, shaving cream) or foods with textures
Difficulty tolerating directed activities

3 – 4 Years

Walking on toes more than 50% of the time
Showing a significant hand preference
No interest in coloring/drawing
Inability to attend to a seated task for 4-5 minutes at a time
Grasping toys and utensils in palm rather than fingers
Difficulty with transitions
Difficulty tolerating a variety of textures (finger-paint, shaving cream) or foods with textures
Difficulty tolerating directed activities
Difficulty sharing toys or becoming agitated during peer play
Not able to cut across a page

4 – 5 Years

Walking on toes more than 50% of the time
Inability to copy simple shapes or color within lines
Grasping toys and utensils in palm rather than fingers
Difficulty with any aspects of self-dressing (except shoelaces)
Difficulty with transitions
Difficulty tolerating a variety of textures (finger-paint, shaving cream) or foods with textures
Difficulty tolerating directed activities
Difficulty with turn-taking games
Difficulty standing in line without touching peers
Not able to cut along a line
Difficulty with dressing self, grooming, bathing, utensil use
Difficulty sharing toys or becoming agitated during peer play

5 Years and Up

Walking on toes more than 50% of the time
Not showing a hand preference
Head on table or desk when writing/coloring
Trouble copying from the board
Poor coordination when playing on the playground
Poor eye-hand coordination
Not able to cut out shapes
Difficulty with dressing self, grooming, bathing, utensil use
Sloppy handwriting
Complaints of eyes being tired after school work/reading
Taking significantly longer than expected to complete tasks
Difficulty with transitions
Difficulty tolerating a variety of textures (finger-paint, shaving cream) or foods with textures
Difficulty tolerating directed activities
Difficulty sharing toys or becoming agitated during peer play
Difficulty standing in line without touching peers
Difficulty with noisy or crowded environments

At Kids Place, we are committed to helping each child reach their fullest potential through personalized and compassionate care.

Understanding Pediatric Occupational Therapy