When Should I Seek Occupational Therapy?

It can be difficult to know if your child is struggling with developmental skills or if they are at a developmentally appropriate level. Here’s a checklist for you before you contact your child’s pediatrician or an occupational therapist.

What does my child have difficulty with?

• Difficulty sustaining attention, following directions, and/or saying tasks are “too hard” or “I can’t”

• Trouble with dressing, zipping coat, or tying shoes

• Fearful of playground equipment or needs a lot of assistance to figure out how to move body

• Unable to open containers, messy eater, difficulty drinking from a cup, and/or difficulty using utensils

• No interest in or avoids puzzles, fine motor activities, and/or drawing and coloring activities

• Often hits, pushes or grabs other children

• Difficulty making friends or participating in cooperative play

• Night waking or nighttime bed wetting

• Toilet learning difficulties, delayed toilet learning, or toileting regressions

• Uncooperative with change and transitions and is inflexible

• Melts down with haircuts, bathing, hair washing, unexpected touch and/or messy play/getting dirty

• Avoids large groups, overreacts to loud sounds, and/or difficulty participating when in a large group

• Selective eater, does not eat many foods or gags often

• Many “tantrums”

• Seems driven by a motor, unable to sit still and is in constant motion

• Seems weaker than other children, has low endurance

How much of an impact do these things have on my child’s daily life?

• Significant impact

• Moderate impact

• Some impact

• No impact

Have I…

• …discussed concerns with our pediatrician? Do they share my concerns?

• …spoken to my child’s family members, friends, daycare workers, babysitters, and/or teachers? Do they share my concerns?

• …eliminated or reduced screen time each day?

• …provided opportunities for gross motor (moving their body) and fine motor (using their hands to play) activities?

• …considered my child’s sleep habits?

Based on your responses to all of the above, evaluate the impact and concern

• Are there more than 2 or 3 areas of difficulty?

• Are the areas of difficulty having a moderate to significant impact?

• Do observations from teachers, family members, friends, and/or pediatricians support your concerns or observations?

• Have your attempts to support development in the concern areas resulted in progress or improvement?

When contacting and consulting with an occupational therapist

• Make sure the practice/therapist specializes in working with children (i.e., pediatric as opposed to geriatric)

• Provide information about how areas of concern are impacting your child’s and family’s life

• Ask about the evaluation process: A comprehensive evaluation should include an in-depth intake and developmental history (either via questionnaires, a phone call, or an in-person interview), structured and/or unstructured assessment procedures that look at the whole child and consider functional performance across settings, and some sort of meeting/conversation to go over evaluation results and recommendations with parents.

• Share school and/or teacher observations if relevant

If you would like a free pdf version of this list, please find it in our shop here.

We offer development screenings at our clinic in Rockville, MD. Contact hello@theyoungandwell.com or hit the “Start Here” button above.