Are you afraid with the constant problems faced by your child with gross motor skills? If yes, then seeking the assistance of occupational therapy can really help you to a great extent. You might wonder, how can occupational therapy help your child with gross motor disorders? Occupational therapy is a branch of neurorehabilitation that primarily deals with coordination, balance, focus, organizational skills, etc. Children struggling with their everyday fine and gross motor tasks can get highly benefited from occupational therapy. Occupational therapy is a neurological rehabilitation program that uses exercises, activities, strategies, and accommodations to help kids develop the skills they require to become more independent. If you have noticed that your child is missing any particular developmental milestone, then occupational therapy could be a great help to you.
In simple terms, occupational therapy is a medical practice that can help children improve their independence and performance in a wide range of skills needed for daily living. Occupational therapy commonly works for children with different cognitive and physical disabilities and medical conditions, and help them improve their self-care skills, social interaction, performance at school, etc. Also, occupational therapy (or OT) works really good for children to improve their gross motor skills. There are many ways, how occupational therapy for children can be used to benefit children with gross motor disorders. But, before we move further, it is important for you to know what are gross motor skills and why they are important to recognize the signs of Gross motor disorders in your child. Gross motor skills are vital for movement of one’s whole body. Daily living activities that include gross motor skills are walking, running, standing, sitting upright, etc. It also includes eye-hand coordination skills like ball skills (throwing, catching, kicking, etc).
Why Are Gross Motor Skills Important?
Gross motor skills are important to enable children to perform their everyday activities. These skills are crucial for everyday self-care. Gross motor skills affect the core areas of the body that are responsible for functions like hand-eye coordination, walking, running, skipping, sitting, and standing. As is evident, these movements are essential in the physical development of children, as they are commonly involved in everyday functioning like basic self-care skills. Moreover, gross motor skills directly include fine motor abilities and are elemental for children to optimally perform and engage at school, home, or other social and recreational activities.
Deficits that Reflects Issues with Gross Motor Skills in Children
Generally, children with gross motor difficulties commonly shows problems like avoidance or general disinterest in physical tasks, silly task performance of physical task that is found challenging to perform, bossiness in telling others how do the physical task or play the game without actively engaging themselves, rush task performance of physical tasks (to mask difficulty or fatigue), poor endurance when engaging in sports or physical tasks, poor posture when sitting at a table, clumsy or graceless movements, and many more. If you found your child facing any of these above-mentioned disabilities, then seek the help of occupational therapy immediately.
How Occupational Therapy for Children Helps With Gross Motor Skills?
Occupational therapy for children uses an array of strategies which focus on different areas to address issues with gross motor skills. They can include:
- Using exercises to Strengthen core muscles and improve stability like working on endurance and strength, coordination and balance, attention, awareness of body and space, praxis (movement planning), etc.
- Boost sensory modulation to enhance attention/arousal to better complete activities.
- Strategies to improve the child’s ability to plan and anticipate tasks.
- Breaking physical tasks down, gradually combining each basic activity to structure the larger task.
- Using a graded approach to the intensity and duration of tasks to develop stamina and tolerance.
If you need assistance with regard to occupational therapy for children anywhere in Dubai, then do approach the top occupational therapy clinics in the UAE. There the occupational therapists are equipped with all the advanced state-of-the-art equipment and are experienced enough to handle a child with gross motor delays, efficiently.
Wondering how to get details of these top neurorehabilitation centers? Make some quality online search. If you are on Social media, you can search there as well, giving the location details appropriately where you need the assistance.
