What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational therapy is a client centred health profession concerned with promoting health and well being through occupation. The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life (World Federation of Occupational Therapists, 2010)
Occupational Therapy helps people to do the everyday things that they want to do and need to do when faced with illness, injury, and disability or challenging life events.
For children, we assess areas of potential difficulty, and assist children in reaching their maximum potential by facilitating development and achievement of developmental milestones

What is Occupation?

Occupations are the ordinary and familiar things that people do every day, anything that occupies a person’s time.
The main categories of occupation include productivity, self-care, play and leisure

Productivity – School/academics, writing, reading, learning etc
Self-care – grooming e.g. brushing teeth, washing yourself, grooming, feeding yourself, dressing etc
Leisure – playing with others, social interaction, hobbies, sports etc

Poor attention or concentration
Child has trouble being still and fidgets a lot/ child seems to disengage or “switch off” after a while
Decreased fine motor skills and poor handwriting
Clumsy, disorganised or forgetful
Trouble interacting with peers or authority figures appropriately
Difficulty controlling behaviour and emotional responses
Difficulty carrying out activities of daily living.