Developmental Services - Case Management Manual
Occupational therapy (OT) is concerned with stimulating independence and enhancing productive function. Occupational therapy concentrates on the areas of motor, perceptual motor, and personal/social skills. Indicators: Problems in reaching and grasping, poor self-help skills, difficulty in relating body to space.
An occupational therapist can useful in assessing and/or dealing with the following:
- Balance problems not associated with skeletal or orthopedic problems.
- Upper extremity problems including:
- Strength, range of motion and/or deformities,
- Fine motor coordination,
- Asymmetry (not attributed to dominance).
- Self-help skills.
- Prevocational skills.
- Sensory problems:
- Eye movement,
- Eye/hand/foot coordination,
- Aversion to or lack of awareness of touch,
- fear of movement/too much movement.
- Tendency to not use either hands or arms for bimanual tasks
- Motor planning difficulty (problems learning new motor tasks).
- Need for adaptive equipment or methods to decrease deformity or increase function for;
- Vocational or prevocational tasks,
- Other daily living skills.
- Visual/perceptual skills,
- Form and space perception,
- figure/ground perception, etc.
- Social Skills
- An occupational therapist can also help in determining learning style.