Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy exists to help children master essential life skills to become independent, build self-efficacy and improve social and emotional health.

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Step by Step Speech engages children through therapy that mimics everyday life and play to help children to regain independence.

Each child is evaluated by one of our professionals, and a treatment plan is designed to tailor to the child’s specific needs.

Through our passionate approach to each child, Step by Step Speech steadily works to improve the daily life of a child, step by step. Thus, children’s daily lives, hygiene, academic performance and relationships with peers will improve.

Most importantly, through occupational therapy, your child will become able to independently connect with the world.

Why Occupational Therapy?

Through play, children work to understand the world by interacting and investigating their environments. Play is a child’s occupation, as it allows a child to learn essential life skills in order to foster self-sufficiency. However, some children may struggle to achieve developmental milestones for social, cognitive and physical development.

Some children may struggle to develop or master the skills necessary to navigate through their environments and partake in daily activities (“occupations”). These daily activities include everything from walking, eating, brushing teeth, playing with other children and many more.

The right occupational therapy can allow a child enhanced development, better communication, stronger cognitive skills with minimal to no developmental delay. Occupational therapy is designed to help children with development of fine motor skills, gross motor skills, visual-perception skills, sensory processing, self-regulation and overall daily life activities.

Motor Development

Occupational therapy improves fine motor development and gross motor development.

Fine motor development involves the use of the smaller muscles in hands, wrists, lips and tongue. Fine motor skills are vital for activities such as: holding a pencil,writing, getting dressed, using silverware, and grasping objects. Your child may benefit from occupational therapy for fine motor skill if they struggle with one or more of the following:

Handling puzzles

Grasping or holding a pencil/crayon

Holding silverware

Using scissors

Tying shoelaces, using
buttons or zippers

Drawing or tracing

Not developing hand dominance at the age-appropriate time

Visual perception skills

Visual perception skills allow children to make sense of what they see as these images are processed by their brains. Often, visual perception skills are used to interpret letters, recognize letters, track visually, find objects and develop the concept of right and left. However, visual perception encompasses a variety of skills, including: the ability to focus on certain information/stimuli without background distraction; the ability to find an object amongst a larger background; the ability to have recollection of objects in particular sequencing; the ability to recall certain objects, photos, traits; the ability to cognize similarities and/or differences based on traits such as color, size and shape; and ability to realize spatial relationships of objects in the world.

Sensory Processing

Sensory Processing occupational therapy helps improve sensory modulation through therapies designed to regulate sensory input to help children feel more secure, comfortable, and focused. Self-regulation is a child’s ability to control, regulate, emotions, focus, attention and energy.

Get a treatment plan designed to tailor
to your child’s specific needs.