Occupational Therapy

Our pediatric occupational therapists can help to remove the barriers that affect your child’s emotional, social and physical needs as they grow.

What exactly is a pediatric occupational therapist? If we define the word ‘occupation,’ it is any activity a person engages in. A pediatric occupational therapist (OT) works to help children participate in all the activities in their daily life successfully and gain independence as much as possible.

Occupational therapists use a holistic approach that looks at all the components that affect a child’s ability to complete an activity. Occupational Therapy looks at the person's physical, mental, cognitive and emotional skills and the surrounding environment; this can also mean looking at relationships dynamics with family, school, home and the activity we are working on. 

Depending on the individual, skills can be from daily tasks to specially developed routines ranging from everyday life skills, such as feeding, playing and hand-eye coordination, to specialized needs involving motor skills, sensory processing tools and more. Once we learn all the individual details, we try to figure out how to bridge the gap by either improving the skills, providing alternatives or providing accommodations.

Some examples of everyday activities that a pediatric occupational therapist can help with are:

Our Occupational Therapy Services

Delayed Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skills allow children to make small or delicate movements with the most minor muscles of the body, such as our fingers, toes, tongue and lips.

Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation is our ability to maintain our emotions during stressful or uncomfortable situations. As children grow, they learn to develop or master their self-regulation skills.

Executive Functioning

Executive functioning is a set of cognitive skills that includes planning, problem-solving, memory, organization, impulse control and much more.

Feeding / Picky Eating

Bring peace back to mealtime. There are several different reasons why many children experience fussy or picky eating habits, but sensory challenges (such as texture and smells) are one of the hardest to battle.

Mental Health / Anxiety

In a safe space, we can help children and parents identify the triggers of anxiety and then develop solutions or coping strategies.

Neurodivergent (ADHD, ADD, ASD)

At On The Ball Pediatrics, we create individualized care plans with you and your child while supporting your child's strengths, unique abilities and authenticity.

Play and Social Skills

Play is a form of social skill that many children struggle to learn. Our goal as occupational therapists is for your child to recognize, express and healthily manage their emotions in group and one-on-one settings.

Self-Care Tasks

Self-care tasks are activities we do daily to take care of ourselves. Examples of self-care tasks are getting dressed, eating, toileting, sleeping or personal hygiene.

Sensory Processing Differences

Everyone has a sensory processing system. We learn how to adapt or manage our sensory processing differences as we grow. Our sensory system works by picking up information from our surroundings, which is then sent to our nervous system.

Toileting

Toileting can be a tricky skill for some children to achieve. We work with children to regulate and create practical toileting skills at their own speed, keeping in mind their physical development and levels of understanding.

Trauma

Whether physical or mental, children who have experienced trauma need environments and opportunities to regain a number of senses or abilities to participate in every day relationships and activities.

What does a pediatric occupational therapy session look like?

Every child is different, so every session is different. Our On The Ball occupational therapist each possesses individual skills and takes different approaches to treatment. 

Phone consultation
01

Generally, your first appointment will be a phone consultation, giving you and your occupational therapist a chance to learn more about your concerns and background information about your child. You will also be able to discuss the areas of development or goals you’d like to collaborate on through occupational therapy.

In-person appointment
02

Your first in-person appointment will be an initial assessment. During the initial assessment, your occupational therapist may use standardized and non-standardized evaluations to determine where your child is physically, socially, emotionally, cognitively and/or mentally. Depending on your child’s age, interests and abilities, pediatric therapy can also look and feel like a play session. However, our therapists are always assessing and making changes to determine or challenge your child’s skills. After the initial assessment is completed, an individualized occupational therapy treatment plan is created based on the goals we are working towards for the follow-up sessions.

Follow-up session
03

In the follow-up session, we involve education for both the parent and child on what skills, development, and issues we’ll be working on through different interventions.

Is occupational therapy right for my child?

If you are unsure if occupational therapy can benefit your child, our team can assess and provide therapy to help them and your family. Once our pediatric occupational therapists identify your child’s issues, we can work as a team on the underlying areas that require improvement. We do this by using proven techniques that will offer a lifelong change.

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