The OT Blog: Occupational Therapy Tip Sheet
Today's OT blog is from: Bláithín Swinburne
-Putting recommendations into practice-
As Occupational Therapists we may recommend to parents to practice core and upper body exercises, fine motor activities, visual perceptual activities and/or daily living skills with their children at home. This is because the more opportunities and practice a child gets, the more progress they can achieve in a skill.
This isn’t always as easy as it sounds!! - and we understand this. Children and families have many responsibilities and needs to attend to. Also, children sometimes are not interested nor motivated to engage in ‘work’ like activities.
If you are having difficulty engaging your child in OT recommended activities, below are some tips and thoughts that may help (these tips may also be transferable to other activities in your child’s routine e.g. homework):
Before the activity
Prioritise - consider all the activities your child is expected to do in a week and reflect on whether they have appropriate balance between ‘work’, rest and free play. Children with disabilities may find learning new skills and information more challenging and tiring on their body and brain. You may need to deprioritise some goals until their schedule allows.
Timing - choose a time that is suitable for you, your child and anyone else in the house. Consider you and your child’s energy levels, hunger/ thirst levels. If possible, allocate a consistent predictable time.
Environment - As much as possible, reduce distractions - clear off the table, turn off TV and radio. Children may be motivated by other families’ members joining in or they could be a distraction! Have all materials close to hand.
Regulate - these situations can be challenging for parents too! Take a few minutes before starting the activity to ensure you are regulated, have a glass of water/cup of tea or take a few big deep breaths of fresh air. Start and end on a big squeezy hug with your child or hand pushes against each other to build in some deep pressure input and reinforce your support and attention to what they are doing.
During the activity
Play based - “Play is the work of a child” - Piaget. Therapists will probably have recommended activities that are play based, but if activities are too demanding on your child because they are too “work-like”, add an element of play to it or incorporate games they like into the activity.
Expectations - Use a visual schedule to help explain to your child what is expected of them. A visual countdown timer can help motivate them for the set time period.
Choice - Use a choiceboard. Take pictures of the materials involved in an activity and allow your child to choose which they do 1st, 2nd etc. Alternatively, allow them to pick the materials from ‘start’ pile/box and place them in the ‘finished’ pile/box when completed.
Just-right challenge - If a child is having a lot of difficulty with an activity this can impact their confidence and motivation to complete the activity. The aim is for the task to be just challenging enough that your child can complete it with a little bit of effort. You may need to grade the difficulty of the activity to suit your child’s abilities on a given day. Some examples of grading activities to achieve the just-right challenge:
o Reduce the amount of repetitions expected of an activity.
o If the activity involves choosing correct items, reduce the number of options they have to choose from.
o If the activity involves tracing/cutting along a line, increase the thickness of the line.
o Reduce the amount of time spent on an activity.
Praise - Praise your child for all attempted and completed activities. If they are not making attempts or avoiding activities respond in a calm and constructive way with limited words.
Discuss with your OT if you are having difficulties implementing home programmes- they will support you with making adjustments and achieving progress!
