What is Occupational Therapy?

Writing Right Occupational Therapy works from a family centred model of practice. We believe it is important for children to continue with activities, strategies and interventions when a therapist is not sitting by their side. By working directly with the whole family, we are able to create interventions and strategies that are realistic for families to implement consistently.

Handwriting & fine motor skills

 

Handwriting is an essential skill for children, particularly those in mainstream schooling. Although we do not use handwriting as much in adult life as we used to, it is a key method used in assessing a child’s progress and development at school and is associated with the positive development of many other life skills. Handwriting requires the coordination of the fingers, hands, arms, eyes and body as well as adequate sensory processing, visual processing and cognition. Difficulties with handwriting can be due to a range of causes, some simple and others more complex.

Writing Right OT can help your child:

  • Accurately identify & form their letters;

  • Improve spacing & the ability to write on the line;

  • Hold their pencil in a functional way;

  • Improve underlying skills impacting on poor handwriting (visual perception, pencil control, bilateral coordination);

  • Improve their seated posture;

  • Provide strategies to assist with sensory processing (more below).

Sensory processing

 

Our body has internal and external senses. Our external senses are those we are taught about at primary school - our vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch. We also have three internal senses - vestibular (balance & movement), proprioception (body awareness) and interoception (internal body signals - hunger, thirst, nausea, pain etc).

Sensory processing refers to the way the nervous system receives messages from these senses and turns them into responses. For those with sensory processing difficulties, sensory information goes into the brain but does not get organised into responses that others may deem appropriate, causing them to respond to sensory information differently to others. This can impact attention/concentration, learning, emotional regulation, behaviour, sleep, skill development and performance, and the capacity to develop and maintain relationships with others.

Writing Right OT can help you and your child:

  • Identify individual sensory processing differences and needs,

  • Develop strategies to manage these needs,

  • Improve a child’s self-awareness of their individual sensory processing,

  • Modify environments to be more suitable for the child.

Other

 

Although our service focuses on difficulties in handwriting, fine motor skills and sensory processing, Occupational Therapists work with children to develop skills in many other occupations. Occupations are activities and tasks that occupy our time, such as:

  • Self care (personal hygiene skills, toileting, dressing, eating, sleep).

  • Household management (meal preparation, housekeeping, laundry, medication management, finance/bill management, mail/phone/email use),

  • Community management (using public transport, shopping, accessing supports).

  • Play skills.

  • Emotional regulation.

  • Executive functioning.