There are specific milestones that a child needs to accomplish throughout the different stages of infancy. These include crawling, walking, running, hopping, jumping, and riding a bicycle, also called gross motor skills—the movement of large muscle groups. When developmental milestones are delayed, it should be a major concern. This is because the delays could be the result of inherent learning difficulties or other conditions that are collectively termed developmental difficulties.

Developmental delays can manifest as sensory and cognitive challenges. Paediatric occupational therapy refers to the process of using various techniques to engage children in meaningful activities to overcome and manage such sensory and cognitive challenges. This therapy equips the child to be independent in daily life. It also helps amplify cognitive functions. Activities include daily chores, self-care skills, educational games, etc. An occupational therapist evaluates a child’s abilities and devises a therapy regimen that could help in the effective development of those abilities. Our experts, who are specialised in speech therapy services for children, can give an accurate evaluation. A therapist closely observes a child to look for areas that need to be addressed.

Who might need Occupational Therapy?

OT can help kids and teens who have:

• Birth injuries or birth defects
• Sensory processing disorders
• Traumatic injuries to the brain or spinal cord
• Learning problems
• Autism
• Mental health or Behavioural problems
• Developmental delays
• Post-surgical conditions
• Multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and other chronic illnesses

When it comes to learning difficulties, early detection and intervention are necessary. Our Paediatric occupation therapy specialists in Dubai can help with effective management of the symptoms by easily recognizing their warning signs like.

• Avoiding eye contact consistently
• Appearing to ignore or acknowledge the presence of people nearby
• Displaying unusual gestures like finger flicking, rocking, pacing, etc.
• Not engaging in spoken language at all.
• Delayed or unusual speech pattern.
• Hypersensitive or insensitive to pain, light, or noise.
• Unwilling to engage in social interaction, play, etc.

Thus, occupational therapy offers many benefits to children with special needs and developmental delays. At first, a child’s strengths and challenges are thoroughly assessed to develop a highly personalised training programme. The training encourages active participation from the parents or the primary caretaker as well. Apart from school, children spent most of the time either with their parents or primary carers. So their active involvement becomes necessary.

The benefits of OT include:

• Develop fine motor skills so they can grasp and release toys and develop good handwriting or computer skills.
• Improve eye–hand coordination so they can play and do needed school skills such as bat a ball and copy from a blackboard.
• Master basic life skills such as bathing, getting dressed, brushing teeth, and self-feeding.
• Learn positive behaviours and social skills by practicing how they manage frustration and anger.
• Get special equipment to help build their independence

Our trained professionals in paediatric occupational therapy Dubai can assist kids in developing their fine and gross motor skills, muscle strength, postural stability, oral-motor skills, feeding, handwriting, visual motor skills, sensory skills, and motor skills.

As one of the best special education schools in Dubai we ensure that your child is well prepared and various fun activities and techniques like use of play dough, art, crafts, and fun games, as well as indoor and outdoor activities are used to accomplish these benefits.

So if you think your child needs Occupational Therapy you can get in touch with our Speech language therapist in Dubai. We also provide assessment and personalised training to children of all ages. Please feel free to contact us. We are always happy to help.