Early Intervention & Pediatric

Early intervention services include infants and toddlers from age birth to 36 months (3 years old) who have or are at risk for developmental delays or disabilities.

Pediatric services include children and youth.

DOES MY CHILD NEED OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY?

Your child's development is crucial. We have the tools to enhance each skill for age-appropriate developmental milestones while engaging in fun play-based methods.

Remember that all children are different and develop the skills below at their own pace.

DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY

Developmental delays mean not meeting development milestones and being behind other children in a combination of skills.

Examples of developmental delays:

Not reaching developmental milestones of rolling, sitting, crawling, and walking.
Not developing age-appropriate grasp of small and large objects.
Not developing age-appropriate play and social skills.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

Fine motor skills are the ability to perform precise movements while using the small muscles of our hands, fingers, and wrists. Fine motor skills are essential for self-care and academic development.

Those who struggle with fine motor skills might have difficulties with one or some of the following actions:

Reaching and grasping objects.
Manipulating toys and puzzle pieces.
Holding and using pencil / coloring tools for writing, coloring, drawing, and tracing.
Clear Letter/number formation.
Holding and using utensils at an age-appropriate stage.
Cutting with scissors.
Manipulating zippers, buttons, shoelaces.
Avoiding activities and games that require dexterity and fine motor skills.

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS

Gross motor skills are based on coordinated and controlled movement of the larger muscles in our arms, legs, torso, and other body parts to achieve stability & balance while performing tasks.

Those who experience difficulties in whole body movement, balance, and strength may appear uncoordinated or clumsy. Their muscle tone and resistance could be low or high, and they might have difficulties with:

Rolling, sitting, standing, and/or walking at an age-appropriate time.
Running & Jumping at an age-appropriate time
Ascending & descending stairs at an age-appropriate time.
Balance.
Gravitational instability (the fear of feet leaving the ground).
Crossing midline and coordinating both sides of the body.
Avoiding activities and games that require movement of larger muscles, balance, and strength.

LEARNING DIFFICULTIES

Learning challenges have a significant weight in academic achievement. Children who have learning difficulties would probably demonstrate one or some of the below behaviors:

Being easily distracted.
Having difficulty following instructions and completing work.
Unable to focus and concentrate at school or while completing homework.

Cannot keep up and getting tired easily with workload at school.
Writing letter/number reversals after the age of seven.
Being Hyperactivity or with low energy.

PLAY SKILLS

Play is the main occupation children engage in because it facilitates their sensory, emotional, and social skills. Developing play skills is crucial for learning about the child’s world. Babies and children develop social skills, gain self-confidence, learn cause-and-effect, create their symbolic world, and learn to problem-solve through play. Your child may present with play skills delays if one or some of the following symptoms are demonstrated:

The child requires adult guidance to initiate play.
Not joining in with other children/ siblings when playing.
Not engaging in purposeful play.
Not exploring toys at an age-appropriate level.
Moving quickly from one game/ activity/toy to the other one.
Having difficulties with sharing and turn-taking.
Having trouble with imitative play.
The child participates in the same repetitive play for hours.

VISUAL PROCESSING

Visual processing is the process of our brain's ability to interpret visual information and respond to what we see. Visual processing skills are essential in many areas of function, especially in handwriting and academic settings for children. Challenges would be presented with:

Difficulty with recognizing letters.
Difficulty with recognizing part of a letter, shape, or object without seeing the whole part.
Difficulty with copying shapes/letters/numbers.
Difficulty with spacing between words or letters and writing unproportional sizes of letters on lines.
Difficulty with copying from the class board or another paper without shifting vision with each letter.
Difficulty locating information during open-book tests.

Difficulty recognizing differences and details.

Difficulty with coordinating what is seen with our eyes into movements with our hands.
Difficulty with crossing the midline.
Difficulty with the concept of left and right.

SENSORY PROCESSING

Sensory processing is the way our brain obtains, controls, and responds to sensory input we receive through our senses, such as sound, touch, smell, and light.

Your child might be oversensitive or undersensitive to stimuli in the environment and display the following behaviors:

Having an unusual aversion to noises/ touch/smell/ light/ movement.
Excessively seeking strong sound, touch, or movement by repetitively moving, jumping, bumping, and crashing into objects/walls/ furniture.
Difficulty calming oneself when getting upset.
Having an unusually high or low pain tolerance.

Throwing a tantrum during dressing/ bathing/ grooming.
Being under-responsive to sensations such as not noticing cuts and bruises.

Being immediately distracted and unfocused by visual or auditory stimuli.
Difficulty coping with changes in the daily routine.
Putting inedible things into the mouth, such as hair, clothes, or jewelry.

We, at A Touch of Hope OT, help children, who have fallen behind in their development, catch up and rise.