What is occupational therapy for children, and in which cases is it used?
In the developmental age, the Occupational Therapist can treat children and young people who may be affected by physical and mental illnesses with temporary and permanent disabilities. With san diego occupational therapy, we set ourselves the goal of developing and improving the child's ability to act in his daily life, favoring and enhancing his interests, in a gradual process of inclusion in his living environments: home, family, school, and in various extra-curricular contexts.
What role, then, does the Occupational Therapist play?
The occupational therapist works with children, adolescents, and their families, helping them build skills that have "stopped" due to trauma or illness, thus allowing them to do their meaningful activities with personal participation.
Therefore, the activities are daily ones and can include all those of growth and development, nutrition,play, social skills, and education.
The occupational therapist also addresses the psychosocial needs of children and young people to make sure they give meaning to their daily life. In a word, he promotes occupational performance, and it has been found, through studies, that the child who undertakes a path of pediatric occupational therapy san diego from a very young age will have a better chance of reaching a high degree of autonomy as he grows up.
How does it work in practice?
The Occupational Therapist implements his rehabilitation intervention also by modifying the environmental factors. He advises on orthoses and aids offering support, in a holistic view, at school, and in the family, promoting the child's adaptation to the activity to be carried out to overcome barriers through ADL (daily life activities) targeted psycho-social activities.
It also works in a team with other specialists (for example, the pediatrician, the orthopedist, the neurologist), can design and customize the use of movement aids, evaluate home accessibility, and remove architectural barriers in front of specific disabilities of the child. Occupational Therapists work with a person-centered approach and carry out their practice based on evidence (evidence-based health care).
In the context of rehabilitation, occupational therapy aims to improve a person's ability to be self-sufficient (allowing him the greatest possible independence) and to carry out creative activities and work useful for himself and society.
These activities are very varied and organized subjectively according to the patient's characteristics and possible congenital and acquired cognitive deficits. Thanks to the various activities carried out, Occupational therapysan diego schools allows the patient to increase the abilities affected by the cognitive deficit and enhance the abilities still intact so that they compensate for the deficient ones. Cognitive therapy achieves these goals by implementing:
- body sensitivity;
- motor skills;
- the ability to desire to carry out an activity;
- the ability to devise and implement a plan consisting of several sequences of actions;
- the ability to persevere in attempts to carry out an activity correctly until completing it effectively.
These functions can be altered in various ways based on the patient's deficits. People with disabilities collaborate with the doctor and the occupational therapist to establish the deficits and organize - according to specific priorities decided together - the objectives, choosing the most appropriate techniques and activities.
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