Occupational Therapy

What is occupational therapy?

Occupational Therapy addresses any skills that impacts a persons ability to engage in any activities or daily tasks that are meaningful to them. In pediatrics, this could be anything that impacts participation and success with school, play, family participation, self care skills, social skills, community participation, etc. 

There are many different treatment methods used within OT. Cultivate Play uses neurodiversity affirming and strengths based approaches, meaning that we emphasize authentic participation, building on strengths, and supports/accommodations through the use of meaningful relationships and child-led play. 

Areas often addressed in pediatric OT

Sensory Processing

Cultivate Play uses a neurodiversity affirming lens to sensory processing with a focus on sensory supports and accommodations to decrease distress and increase participation. 

Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skills are how we use our arms and hands to interact with our environment. 

Visual Perceptual Skills

Visual perceptual skills help us attend to our environment and process what is happening around us. 

Executive Functioning Skills

Executive functioning skills are the brain proccess' that help us accomplish tasks, such as memory, organization, direction following, etc. 

Self-care Skills

Self-care skills are the skills we learn throughout childhood to help us become more independent such as, dressing, bathing, toileting, hygiene tasks, etc. 

Social Skills

Cultivate Play acknowledges that neurodivergent social skills do not look the same as neurotypical social skills do. We promote building on these skills in an authentic and meaningful way that does not include the required use of masking neurodivergent traits for social participation. 

Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation ties into our sensory processing and executive functioning skills to help us better understand ourselves and make sense of our inner experiences.