Does my child need occupational therapy?

A child may benefit from occupational therapy if they have difficulties with:

• Fine motor and table-top activities (like coloring, drawing, writing, and using scissors)
• Developmentally appropriate play activities
• Behaviors, self-regulation, and coping skills
• Transitions and flexibility
• Visual attention and spatial environmental awareness
• Sensory processing and modulation
• Tactile tolerance/tactile defensiveness
• Age-appropriate food selectivity and/or feeding skills
• Learning, recognizing, and remembering symbols, forms, letters, and numbers
• Handwriting, letter formation, spacing, and sizing
• Delayed hand dominance (often switches the hand they use to draw and write with)
• Motor planning, motor coordination, and praxis (difficulty with balance and coordination, difficulty imitating motor movements, etc.)
• Executive functioning skills (difficulty planning, sequencing, or organizing activities that involve multiple steps, etc.)
• Self-care activities and age-appropriate independence

For more on this topic, check out our article Occupational Therapy 101.