Occupational Therapy (OT) enables people to participate in daily life to improve their health and wellbeing. Daily life is made up of many activities (or occupations). Occupations for children or young people may include self-care (getting ready to go to school, dressing, eating a meal, using the toilet), being productive (e.g. going to school, handwriting/recording work in class) and leisure - playing or doing hobbies.

(Adapted from Royal College of OT Website 2018)

 

How occupational therapy can help my child?

An occupational therapist will need to identify and understand your child's usual occupations to discover what difficulties they face. They will support you and other relevant people such as teachers, to evaluate your child's challenges and strengths to help them to do those occupations that are important to you and your child. The occupational therapist may suggest alternative ways of doing things, providing advice on learning new approaches and techniques, or making changes to the environment, for example, through using equipment or adaptations.

(Adapted from Royal College of OT Website 2018)

Occupational Therapy Provision at Laleham Gap School

Currently OT provision at Laleham Gap school is 4 hours weekly in Primary School and 6 hours weekly in Secondary School. Children can be seen individually or in groups, working on the child's individual OT goals. Tailored individual OT programmes will often require continuation in the school and home environment (For example, a daily fine motor programme facilitates better pencil control and enables more independence recording work in the classroom).

 

Regular OT training is also provided to teaching staff, to promote universal strategies that may facilitate a child's independence in daily activities and help the child in accessing the school curriculum.