Occupational therapy is helpful for children with delays in Cognitive and Motor development as well as Sensory-processing difficulties.

Cognitive development is a process by which a child acquires the ability to think, reason, organize and use knowledge. Cognitive skills include attention, concentration, planning, organizing, decision-making, problem-solving, and memory. An occupational therapist is trained to identify and assess difficulties with cognition and works on improving them.

Motor skills are required for movement of the body’s muscles to perform day-to-day tasks ranging from simple to complex ones.

They are categorised as:

Fine motor skills involve the coordination of small muscles of our hands (wrists, palms, and fingers) with our eyes. It can involve holding things in hand such as a pencil, toothbrush, spoon, beads, scissors etc., writing, colouring, tying shoelaces, buttoning, unbuttoning, zipping, opening or closing a lid, unlocking or locking with key, rotating a door knob and many more such activities.

Gross motor skills, on the other hand, involve coordinated movements of the large muscles of our body to perform daily tasks. Activities requiring gross motor skills include, crawling, walking, running with change in speed and direction, hopping, jumping, climbing and coming down the stairs, cycling or riding a vehicle etc.

Children with special needs often have restricted growth and development. An occupational therapist helps by working on both fine and gross motor skills of a child.

Our brain processes sensory information received through eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. Sensory-processing difficulties affect how our brain processes sensory information received through these five senses. Children with sensory difficulties may be hypersensitive (highly sensitive to sensory stimuli) or hyposensitive (diminished sensitivity to sensory stimuli). Occupational therapy thus becomes beneficial in dealing with sensory difficulties.