Occupational therapy
Therapy focused on the practical business of daily life — motor skills, self-care, sensory regulation, and the physical demands of a classroom. Formal sensory profiles come from an OT, not from us.
Why occupational therapy matters.
The name misleads almost every parent who hears it. Nothing to do with jobs: a child's occupations are dressing, eating, writing, playing and getting through a school day, and OT is about removing the barriers to those.
It is also the discipline whose work most needs to leave the room. Skills practised on a therapy swing matter when they change what a child can do at their own desk, which is why what happens between sessions is more of the intervention than the session is.
Questions that get a real answer
- What should we be doing daily at home, and for how long?
- What has changed in the classroom as a result of this?
- What are we measuring, and against what starting point?
Ask these of anyone, including us. What you are listening for is not the right answer — it is whether the answer is specific enough to be wrong.
Terms that usually turn up alongside it.
Phonological awareness
Hearing and manipulating the sounds inside spoken words — rhyme, syllables, the individual sounds in "cat".
GlossaryPragmatic language
The social use of language — turn-taking, staying on topic, reading tone, knowing how much background a
GlossaryPrompt dependence
When a child will only perform a skill once an adult signals. The skill is present; what is missing is
Send it to us and we'll translate it.
Any report, from any provider, including ones we have nothing to do with. We will tell you in plain English what it says, what it recommends, and which parts are actually supported by the evidence in it. No charge, and it does not make you a client.