What do pediatric occupational therapists do?

Nick Sidwell, OTR/L

A lot of parents wonder “what do pediatric occupational therapists do?”, and whether or not their services can help their child. OTs can help develop fine motor, sensory, social, and emotional skills within your child.

What Do Pediatric Occupational Therapists Do?

An occupational therapist focuses on occupations, or in other words things that occupy our time. The main occupation of children is play. Pediatric occupational therapists focus on improving or helping with skills through play. 

Fine Motor Skills

One area that a pediatric occupational therapist can focus on is fine motor skills. Fine motor skills include the ability to accomplish things like writing, cutting with scissors, and building with blocks or legos. 

Self Help Skills

Another area of focus is self-help skills. Self-help skills include feeding using utensils, dressing (buttons, zippers, fasteners, etc.), and hygiene (toileting, tooth brushing, washing hands, etc.). 

Sensory Processing Sensitivity

Occupational therapy can also focus on helping children with sensory difficulties. Children who have difficulty with different textures, or do not like messy hands or face, or cover their ears during loud noises, cover eyes from sunlight, etc. are examples of kids demonstrating difficulties with sensory information. Pediatric occupational therapists can also help children who are picky eaters via feeding therapy. 

Emotional Regulation

Another area that a pediatric occupational therapist can focus on is emotional regulation. Children may have difficulty with identifying emotions and how to respond when they feel those emotions. A pediatric occupational therapist can help children in identifying emotions and determining useful strategies to respond when they feel those different emotions. 

Social Skills Occupational Therapy

Some children have difficulty with play and social skills such as turn taking, sharing, playing in a group or with peers. Pediatric occupational therapy services can focus on helping children develop or improve these social and play skills.

Some other areas that a pediatric occupational therapist can focus on include: visual skills (visual tracking, visual perception, visual discrimination, etc.), attention to non-preferred tasks, sequencing and planning tasks, and retained primitive reflexes.