It is important to remember that if your child is recommended for occupational therapy services, it is to ensure that they have the resources and support they need in order to best access the curriculum. There is no need to panic! If a teacher or specialist sees that a child is progressing at a different rate than his or her peers, there may be simple accommodations or activities the child can practice that will serve to help the child with those skills. It is as simple as that. Students benefit from occupational therapy for a variety of different reasons
Fine motor skills involve the small muscles in the hands and forearms, such as writing, using feeding utensils, and managing clothing fasteners. Often, children come to elementary school with slightly delayed fine motor skills. This can be due to several factors. Sometimes lack of experience or exposure is a simple culprit. Exercises to help improve strength and endurance, combined with practice of skills is often the focus of occupational therapy in these cases. Sometimes, fine motor weaknesses are related to low muscle tone, which is the resting tension in our muscles. Low muscle tone can negatively impact postural strength and endurance. Postural control is important for stabilizing the torso and shoulder, which is a foundation to the development of fine motor precision skills. Low muscle tone can also impact a child's sense of body awareness, or proprioception. This is the sense that tells the child where parts of their body are in relation to each other, and how much force is required to complete a task. Proprioception skills, and muscle tone can be improved with activities and exercises that provide sensory information to the muscles and joints.
Visual motor integration (VMI) refers to the ability to interpret visual information to perform a fine motor task. It requires the eyes and hands to coordinate together to complete activities such as copying shapes, letters, and numbers, and developing writing skills. VMI relies on both visual perceptual skills and fine motor precision. Development of VMI in schools relies on developing self-checking skills, understanding patterns, directions, and grids, and repeated practice of copying forms, while incorporating several other sensory systems to improve learning.
Visual perception is simply the brain's ability interpret, organize, and make sense of visual information. It can be broken down into several subcategories:
Visual discrimination is the student's ability to distinguish similar looking forms from one another, by scrutinizing differences in size, shape, color, orientation, etc. This is an important skill for distinguishing similar looking letters such as lower case d and b, or m and n.
Figure ground refers to the student's ability to pick out important visual information from a busy background. This skill is important for helping a student not lose his or her place on a page when reading.
Form constancy means that the student understands that a form, particularly a letter, is the same letter even if it is slightly changed in style or font.
Visual closure refers to the ability to interpret a form, even if the visual information is incomplete, for example a triangle drawn in a dotted line is still a triangle even though it does not have three continuous lines. Development of this skill helps a child to become more fluent in reading and decoding.
Visual memory refers to the ability to recall visual information even after the stimulus is no longer seen. This skill helps a child to copy information from the board, and develop site word knowledge.
Sensory Processing refers to our ability to receive sensory information from the environment, and then process, organize, and respond appropriately to that information. Contrary to popular belief, there are more than just five human senses. In addition to sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, we also gain sensory information from our vestibular system and from proprioceptive awareness. Our vestibular system, integral to coordination and balance, is our sense of where our body is in space, and in relation to outside forces such as gravity. Vestibular awareness alerts us that our bodies are moving, perhaps forward, or in rotation, or perhaps that we are tilted to the side or upside down. Proprioception refers to our understanding of where our body is in relation to itself. Through proprioception, we are subconsciously aware when our arms are crossed, or when we are standing versus squatting.
Sensory processing function is broken down into two main components; sensory modulation and sensory discrimination. Sensory modulation refers to how our nervous system maintains an optimal level of arousal, allowing us to focus and make use of sensory information. If the brain does not filter and interpret sensory information correctly, an individual may be over-responsive, under-responsive, or vary in response to sensory information, which can affect his or her attention, behavior, emotions, and motor behaviors. Sensory discrimination refers to how an individual organizes and interprets sensory information in order to use it to complete a task successfully. Impairments in sensory discrimination result in difficulties in certain aspects of coordination, motor planning (also known as praxis, or the ability to plan, organize, and sequence a novel motor activity), and skill development.
Executive function refers to high level thinking skills that are necessary for successful school and work performance. Among elementary aged students, executive functioning skills that are critical include working memory, initiation, sustained attention, sequencing, organization, problem solving, time management, and self-regulation (of emotions and responses to them). When a child struggles with any of these skills, school performance is understandably impacted. Occupational therapy can help students learn strategies to assist in the development of these skills, and in the process grow to appreciate benefits having these skills handy.