Occupational therapy for pre-school children
We offer occupational therapy for pre-school children, supporting them with a range of physical, sensory and behavioural challenges.
How does occupational therapy work for 3 to 5-year-olds?
Occupational therapy is a collaborative process between the therapist and the parents, uniquely shaped around each individual child. Our aim is to help your child thrive both at home and in any childcare setting they attend.
We complete a detailed assessment first, with face-to-face sessions with both the child and parents. This assessment helps establish the needs of your child and shape our recommendations for further therapy.
As parents, you would attend any therapy sessions with your child. Working alongside the therapist you can develop strategies to support your child at home.
We also work with any childcare settings your child might be in. Some sessions can be held at the setting with their key worker or another key member of staff. Working with them, we can build strategies for your child that they can use in the childcare setting.
What do you do during sessions?
During your child’s assessment, we will have identified the key areas of need your child has. These might be things such as risky climbing activities, sensory regulation issues or behaviours such as biting non-food items.
Your child’s specific needs will determine what we do during sessions. We will spend time exploring sensory activities, finding ways to engage with your child. All of our work is play-based, as this is how your child learns and grows.
Throughout the session, our goal is to empower you as a parent so that you know what to do in response to risky or challenging behaviours. We aim to give you the tools you need to support your child’s development. We will problem solve together around specific needs, exploring the possible triggers for different behaviours.
All of this will help you to think differently about the challenges your child faces, giving you a toolbox of strategies to use.
How do I know if occupational therapy is right for my child's needs?
Children benefit from occupational therapy for a variety of reasons. Maybe your child:
-
Has difficulties engaging with their everyday activities
-
Struggles with fine motor skills
-
Quickly becomes overstimulated or overwhelmed by their environment
-
Appears anxious, isolated or withdraws from activities and engaging with others
-
Doesn’t notice things around them, seeming detached from what’s happening
Occupational therapy can help your child overcome challenges like this. If you’re not sure whether it’s right for your child, fill in our referral form with as much detail as possible included.
How many therapy sessions will my child need?
There isn’t one answer to this question: it depends entirely on the specific needs identified in the assessment. Once we have assessed your child, we will provide a detailed report including some strategies to begin with. We will make a recommendation on whether therapy is needed and how many sessions will be appropriate.
Why is occupational therapy assessment so expensive?
An occupational therapy assessment is a detailed process to understand your child’s world. Through the assessment, we formulate a broad picture of your child and their strengths, as well as the barriers that need to be overcome so that they can fully participate in life.
This includes understanding your child’s history and the family’s history, your child’s physical and emotional development, assessments around sensory processing and motor skills and understanding your child’s mental health.
At the end of the assessment, our report will provide strategies to help your child at home and in childcare settings, as well as suggestions around further therapy.
You might find it useful to read through the outline of our assessment process.
I think my child is neuro-divergent but haven't got a diagnosis. Can you still see them?
Absolutely. As a team, we are very experienced in working with children who are neurodivergent, including autism, ADHD or sensory processing impairments.
Wherever you are on the diagnosis journey (and even if your child is neuro-normative!), our whole assessment and therapy process is built around your child and their specific needs.
What is sensory processing?
Sensory processing (also known as sensory integration) is about how we make sense of all the information coming from our senses throughout the day. How do we process the things happening around us and inside us? Everyone experiences the world differently, so we all have a unique response to what is happening.
There are many ways in which we receive information from our bodies and the world around us:
-
Sight
-
Hearing
-
Touch - including what we feel on our skin
-
Taste
-
Smell
-
Body awareness - where our body is and how it is moving
-
Balance and spatial orientation
-
What’s happening inside our bodies - our heart rate, hunger sensations, our temperature, pain, emotional sensations, etc.
Sensory processing is automatic and develops naturally during ordinary childhood activities. However, sometimes children and young people do not understand how to cope with their sensory experiences or struggle to recognise the information coming in.
These sensory regulation issues can affect daily living, academic achievement, behaviour or social participation.
Getting professional support to understand your child's sensory processing through therapies like occupational therapy can significantly improve their engagement in daily life and give them tools to regulate themselves.
All our occupational therapists are qualified Sensory Integration Practitioners. You can read more about sensory integration on the Sensory Integration Education website.
