{"id":157,"date":"2012-01-29T23:49:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T07:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention3\/?p=157"},"modified":"2013-01-19T15:56:38","modified_gmt":"2013-01-19T22:56:38","slug":"occupational-therapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/2012\/01\/29\/occupational-therapist\/","title":{"rendered":"Occupational Therapist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Occupational therapists or OTs work with children who have difficulties with their muscles. OTs help children improve the muscles that will make it possible for them to be as independent as possible. OTs work on helping children to improve their fine motor skills, and therefore their quality of life. Specifically, OTs help children with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eye\/hand coordination (Fig. 1);<\/li>\n<li>Eating (with one\u2019s hands or with utensils such as forks and chopsticks);<\/li>\n<li>Drinking and swallowing;<\/li>\n<li>Dressing and undressing;<\/li>\n<li>Writing, drawing and painting (Fig. 2);<\/li>\n<li>Bathing and grooming;<\/li>\n<li>Toileting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"playing with blocks\" src=\"https:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2155\/2402745818_49c8310060_m.jpg\" alt=\"playing with blocs\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Figure 1. Eye\/hand coordination<\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"a boy painting\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7007\/6523314863_c43a57855a_n.jpg\" alt=\"a boy painting\" width=\"320\" height=\"221\" \/><\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Figure 2. A boy painting<\/h5>\n<p>OTs work with children who have motor impairments (such as <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention2\/category\/2-1-children-with-nervous-system-disorders-cerebral-palsy\/\" target=\"_blank\">cerebral palsy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention2\/category\/2-1-children-with-nervous-system-disorders-spina-bifida\/\" target=\"_blank\">spina bifida<\/a>), <a title=\"The level of tension in a muscle, when this muscle is resting. Too much muscle tone is called hypertonia and involves very stiff muscles. Too little muscle tone is called hypotonia and involves very floppy muscles.\">muscle tone<\/a> (see ECI <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/earlychildhoodintervention1\/files\/2012\/02\/ECI_Glossary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Glossary<\/a>)\u00a0 difficulties (such as <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention2\/category\/2-0-children-with-genetic-disorders-down-syndrome\/\" target=\"_blank\">Down syndrome<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention2\/category\/2-1-children-with-nervous-system-disorders-fatal-alcohol-spectrum-disorder-fasd\/\" target=\"_blank\">FASD<\/a>), and trouble with muscle coordination.<\/p>\n<p>OTs work with children individually or in groups. They offer therapy sessions to individual children, and often act as consultants in school settings.<\/p>\n<p>OTs work very closely with the children\u2019s parents and make suggestions about how parents can make adaptations to their homes \u00a0to maximize their children\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n<p>OTs are usually an integral part of many <a title=\"The IEP is a legal document that children with a special needs designation get, when they attend school. The IEP provides information about the child\u2019s current level of functioning, his or her skills and needs, what goals and objectives he or she will be expected to achieve, during the academic year, and which special education professionals will help the child reach those goals.\">Individual Education Plan (IEP)<\/a>\u00a0(see full <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention2\/files\/2012\/12\/MCI_Glossary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Glossary<\/a>) teams. They serve on the team, offer information about whatever condition the child has, make recommendations to teachers and parents, and offer advice and suggestions about adaptive equipment. Such adaptive equipment includes adaptive pens and pencils, scissors, rulers and paint brushes.<\/p>\n<p>OTs with special training in sensory integration therapy are called <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/category\/the-medical-field-professionals-s\/\" target=\"_blank\">sensory integration specialists<\/a>. They work with children who have sensory processing difficulties.<\/p>\n<p>For more information (and an informational video) about OT, please visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.caot.ca\/default.asp?pageid=3024\" target=\"_blank\">following website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h5>see <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention2\/files\/2012\/12\/MCI_References.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">References<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Occupational therapists or OTs work with children who have difficulties with their muscles. OTs help children improve the muscles that will make it possible for them to be as independent as possible. OTs work on helping children to improve their fine motor skills, and therefore their quality of life. Specifically, OTs help children with: Eye\/hand [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-medical-field-professionals-o"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/middlechildhoodintervention3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}