What is School-Based Occupational Therapy?

School-Based occupational therapists work with staff and students to identify underlying causes or impairments that may cause a student difficulties when they attempt to access their educational environment. This may include difficulties with writing assignments, crafting with their peers, attending to tasks, organizing their work space, and completing some self-care tasks. Some of the underlying impairments that could cause a child to have difficulties in the school environment may include difficulties with fine motor skills, visual motor skills, and sensory skills.

The neat and sometimes complex part of doing activities with your occupational therapist is that one activity may address SO many skills in one task. This website is meant to be used to help out families during the COVID-19 distance learning time period and the therapists sorted the activities in categories to help get parents and children started, but keep in mind that just because it's under one resource page that it doesn't mean it wouldn't also suffice in another category. In short, EXPLORE the whole site and check out all of the resources and activities we've added and will continue to add over the remainder of the school year.

On this site, we will be providing you with a few resources to address fine motor skills, visual motor skills, handwriting, and sensory skills. Please keep in mind that these resources do NOT replace your occupational therapist's skills or knowledge, but are intended to help you start working on techniques and activities at home that will allow your child to retain their skills with the possibility to gain new skills. Please contact your school therapist if you have any questions or concerns regarding this site, these resources, or your child's skills.

We look forward to partnering with you and your household during this distance learning education period.

We also want to thank all of the websites we are using a resources who have done an excellent job at compiling and sharing their knowledge. Disclaimer: Not everything we post here is our work and we do not own the rights to the websites we post. Please follow the guidelines for each webpage before using them.

Here are a few resources to detail roles of the occupational therapist in the school setting:

What Parents Need to Know About School-Based Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy’s Role with School Settings

Occupational Therapy Role in the School: Partnering for Change Model

Free Resources: Tools to Grow