Paediatric Occupational Therapy

Seeking support for your child

Milestones are achieved at varying times and there is no a one-size-fits-all when it comes to children; they all have their own strengths and needs. However, if you are concerned about your child's development in any way it is best to seek advice from a Health Professional at the earliest opportunity as early intervention is integral to achieving the best outcomes for your child's future. It can be a big step making first contact with a health professional for support, but please be assured you are coming to an open, safe and non-judgmental space.

At Little Life Development we work with children with additional needs as well as children with no known diagnosis, who may just need some extra support or guidance in a certain area of their development.  This is where our Occupational Therapy Screening/Developmental Check can be useful.

What is Occupational Therapy?

As Paediatric Occupational Therapists (OTs), we put the child at the centre of everything we do.  OTs look at a child's 'occupations' (what they do) throughout the day and can help identify factors which may be impacting on the child's functional engagement with that activity or task. 

An infant or child's main occupations can be broken down into:

  • Self-Help
  • Play
  • Learning (or education)
  • Rest

Essentially anything your infant/child engages in as part of their day-to-day life falls under these four occupations. For example: eating, getting dressed, playing with peers, handwriting and drawing skills, sleep; to name but a few.

Factors which impact on the child's engagement with these occupations include motor skills, visual perceptual skills, sensory processing, the environment, and childhood trauma and mental health. These variables can also all impact each other.

At Little Life Development we unpick all of this to plan a therapy programme that will help your child develop their skills and reach their potential.

Key Areas of Occupational Therapy

Below are areas we may be able to help your infant/child with following assessment:

  • Fine Motor Skills - Hand strength, grasp patterns (including pencil grasps), bilateral coordination.
  • Gross Motor Skills - Balance & coordination, praxis (motor planning), core strength, shoulder strength & stability.
  • Visual Perceptual & Visual Motor Skills -  how we make sense of and discriminate what we see and how we use our vision in conjunction with our motor skills (e.g. when throwing a ball, writing or drawing etc).
  • Self-Help - getting dressed & undressed, toileting/potty training, teeth and hair brushing, washing & bathing.
  • Play Skills- levels and stages of play, turn-taking, functional communication during play.
  • Sensory Processing- Many people know of our 5 basic senses: smell, taste, sight, hearing, touch. But did you know we have 3 other senses? proprioception, vestibular, and the most recent sense to be studied is interoception.  Click here for some great, basic information on these 8 senses to get you started.

Starting with an Initial Assessment

All of the different factors above interact with each other in order that the child can successfully engage with the world around them, and so as part of our Initial Occupational Therapy Assessment, all areas of development tend to be assessed.  Please see our services page for details of all of the Paediatric Occupational Therapy services we offer.



Get in touch to discuss how we can support you and your child