Occupational Therapy
When to refer to Occupational Therapy (OT):
- Motor delay (child not achieving age expected motor milestones).
- Developmental concerns (concerns regarding child’s overall development, including delays in social, emotional, cognitive, or motor skills).
- Difficulties with fine motor development (grasping, manual dexterity, in-hand manipulation, hand-eye coordination, usingscissors and/or writing material).
- Difficulties with gross motor development (balance, coordination,motor planning, ball play).
- Suspicion of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) (motor planning and coordination difficulties affecting activities of daily living, participation in school or leisure activities, handwriting, ball play, jumping and balance tasks).
- Recommend DCD evaluation once child is over 5 years old.
- For children aged 3-5 years old, they will require 2 assessments administered at least 3 months apart (with both total scores <5th percentile rank on MABC-2) to receive diagnosis per DSM-5 criteria.
- Difficulties with sensory integration (processing and responding to sensory information, over or under-responsive to sensory input affecting their ability to participate in daily activities).
- Feeding and/or oral-motor development concerns (bottle-feeding, sucking, chewing, or movements of mouth and tongue that impact feeding, transitioning to solids, aversions to certain textures or tastes).
- Swallowing concerns (difficulties with swallowing, gagging, frequent coughing and/or choking while drinking or feeding).
- Difficulties performing self-care tasks expected for their age (decreased autonomy in activities such as dressing, feeding, bathing, and toileting).