OT Month – Helping Children Within a School Setting

Apr 4, 2022 | Adaptive Equipment, Occupational Therapy, Pediatric, Schools

April is Occupational Therapy (OT) month and here at PT Services, our school-based therapists strive to achieve maximum independence with students within our contracted schools. This week we are going to be providing education on what our occupational therapy practitioners do within the schools in our community. Our therapists are proud to be a part of every school they are in and pride themselves in the work they deliver. But above all, we want to THANK every school district in our community that allows us to be a part of their AMAZING special education department teams.

Let’s kick this week off by providing information on what Occupational Therapy can address within our schools. Many people know that OT works on fine motor skills, but what many people do not know is that we are so much more than just fine motor. In the school setting, we most commonly get asked to help students who have writing and fine motor difficulties, and our job as a therapist is to identify the root cause of what is making these tasks difficult. Once we know what is causing the student to have difficulty completing tasks, we set goals to work on improving their skills for success. Below are some of the many other things that your OT practitioners can help students with for increased independence within their educational setting:

  • Fine motor and gross motor needs
  • Sensory processing disorders
  • Self-help skills that are impacting their daily educational needs
  • Visual-motor deficits
  • Executive functioning difficulties
  • Strengthening for core, back, neck, arms, and hands
  • Making modifications/adaptations to student’s tools and within the classroom
  • Provide support to staff for student success in and out of the classroom
  • Provide community resources that can help students, teachers, and family

Teachers and parents, if your kids are demonstrating difficulty in any of the areas listed above, reach out to your school occupational therapist, they would love to help you come up with a plan to help create a successful outcome.

Now that we know what OT can address in our educational setting, let’s talk about how these services will look within the school. Occupational therapists know that each child is unique. This means we will work with your students in a way that creates success and achievement for them. Some students might need more one-on-one services and the therapist can pull them from the classroom to work on improving their skills in a quiet setting. But we also know that some students might not like to be pulled from class. We can then come into the classroom during their regular schedule and implement techniques during teacher instruction. However, some students might need both of these approaches. In this case, we can pull the students for one-on-one instruction and then follow them to their classroom to help them carry over these skills during teacher lessons. Our therapists also provide small group instruction and can meet with students during recess, art, music, and gym. But one of the most important ways for continued carryover and success is open communication with teachers and staff so students have the tools they need throughout their entire school day. Occupational therapy practitioners are great at adapting to any environment to do what is best for our students.

Occupational therapy is all about adaptation. Our therapists love to be creative and come up with unique ways to adapt students’ tools for increased educational success. Below are just a few ways our OT staff can help make accommodations for a student’s needs:

  • FINE MOTOR – providing adapted writing/drawing/art tools, suggesting specialized scissors, coming up with fun fine motor activities for the student to complete throughout the day
  • VISUAL MOTOR – providing slant boards, giving special writing paper, supplying colored reading strips, suggestions for proper font size, giving visual-motor exercises to complete throughout the day
  • SENSORY PROCESSING – creating an individualized sensory diet per student needs, alternate seating options, auditory accommodations for increased focus, fidgets or weighted items for increased attention and/or transitions, providing accommodations for tactile feedback during classroom tasks, supplying oral suggestions to help quiet and calm the mouth
  • STRENGTHENING – providing fun ways to integrate strengthening during lessons, alternate seating to promote strength, suggesting resistive tools and manipulatives
  • SELF HELP – adapting clothes and feeding utensils for increased independence, teaching fun songs for tying shoes, washing hands, etc
  • EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING – meeting with the students to create schedules and planners, creating ways for the student to stay organized, helping student declutter their desks and lockers and coming up with an organization system for them, working on time management techniques for timely completion of tasks

School staff, please reach out to your school occupational therapy team if you need adaptations or accommodations for your students. We would love to help you create something fun and unique to help your students.

Ashley Childress COTA/L