Paediatric Occupational Therapists work closely with families to help children build the skills and functional capacities needed for a whole range of tasks, particularly at home! Most families will come and see an OT for a series of one-on-one sessions at our clinic, however we only get to see your child for 1 hour, once a week! For therapy to be effective and to see lasting change, it is important to continue therapy in the home environment. We encourage parents and carers to step into the ’therapist role’ at home so they can implement strategies to maximize their child’s progress. This doesn’t have to look like extra ‘OT Homework’ as we usually see the best outcomes when we build these strategies into our children’s routines.
So here are our top 5 ways to build OT into your daily routine to build skills and maximise outcomes
- Backward Chaining – This is a technique we use when teaching children to be more independent in daily tasks such as dressing, tying shoes, brushing teeth etc. In this technique, the child completes the last step of the task such as pulling up their socks or pulling the knot tight in their shoelaces. By doing this, the child gets to feel the sense of completion and success when they finish the task. We keep doing this until the child has mastered that final step, then we work backwards! They will then complete the last 2 steps etc. We are working towards the child becoming completely independent in the selected task.
- Using problem-solving language– Problem-solving forms a key part of our ability to learn new skills and there is a number of ways we can stimulate this problem-solving process in our little ones at home. Asking questions is one way to do this, for example, if our child tells us they can’t do a task, we could say ‘Wow, that does look tricky, I wonder how we could do this together?’ Narrating their experience is also a powerful way to encourage problem-solving and self-reflection. This can look like saying ‘I liked how you tried to push your thumb through the buttonhole first.’
- Learning from mistakes! Error-based learning is an approach that builds problem-solving skills and can be a key way for children to learn new skills and behaviours. It essentially is learning from our mistakes! Allowing children, the opportunities to make mistakes during tasks at home not only teaches them the value of adapting and changing their approach but also that mistakes are an important part of growing and learning. It might be tricky to sit back and watch your child pour juice all over the table instead of in their cup, however, when this happens, we can encourage them to try again and work out what went wrong!
- Goal setting at home – An important part of motivating our children to learn new things is setting small goals that are achievable and realistic. In doing this we clearly set the expectations of what we are trying to achieve, as well as building on their confidence by supporting our children to feel success. It is important that we start by setting smaller goals such as ‘pulling our socks up by ourselves each day,’ and then work towards bigger goals. It might also be helpful to display the goal somewhere like the fridge so you can reference their progress each day.
- Modelling– This is one of the easiest and most simple ways of incorporating therapy at home! Watching someone else complete a task is a powerful way to practice our motor skills. Our brain actually contains specific neurons called mirror-neurons that fire when we watch someone else complete a task. It’s almost like our brain is practicing motor plans without actually performing! When we model tricky functional tasks for our child such as pulling up pants, pouring a drink of water or stirring a bowl of pancake mix, we provide a reference point for our child to learn these new skills.
If you would like more information on how you can provide follow-through from therapy sessions at home, please contact Occupational Therapy Helping Children. Ph (02) 9913 3823 or email hello@occupationaltherapy.com.au
