Occupational therapy is a skills-based intervention that isn’t just for children that have clinically diagnosed conditions or disorders. If your child is struggling to keep up with peers, in school or not meeting developmental milestones they may benefit from extra support. With a strong culture of respecting individuality, affirming neurodiversity, and celebrating all strengths, Outcomes Therapy aims to recognise and embrace the whole child, their significant others, and their life goals, to determine their journey to success.
No one person is the same as anyone else, and our goal is to see your own outcomes realised, not someone else’s plan for success. Begin the journey to realise your child’s own future outcomes today.
Concerned about any of the following behaviours or milestones?
Skills such as taking a first step, smiling for the first time, and waving “bye bye” are called developmental milestones. Children reach milestones in how they play, learn, speak, act, and move. Whilst our expectations on the timeline for each skill can broad, if you have concerns regarding the below it may be time to schedule an assessment:
Poor independence in daily living skills such as toileting, bathing or eating
Coordination and fine motor concerns
Messy or slow handwriting
Difficulty making friends or playing with other children
Meltdowns and tantrums
Behaviour concerns from childcare, kindy or school
Poor attention or concentration
No safety awareness (always climbing, running and on the go)
Picky eating or refusal to eat
Milestones
Attention & Learning
Difficulties concentrating and focusing at school
Easily distracted
Low energy, finds engaging in activities difficult
Poor ability to follow multi-step instructions
Poor impulse control
Hyperactivity – too much energy within a situation
Not keeping up with grade expectations for workload
Making letter or number reversals after age seven
Using hands and fingers in a coordinated way (Fine Motor Skills)
Difficulty with manipulating toys and puzzles
Poor pencil grasp
Difficulties with colouring, drawing, tracing, prewriting shapes
Slowed or laborious handwriting
Poor handwriting, letter/number formation
Difficulties using scissors
Trouble using feeding utensils or doing buttons and zips at an age-appropriate time.
Slowed hand-dominance development
Avoidance of tasks and games that require fine motor skills
Movement, Strength, and Balance Development (Gross Motor Skills)
Clumsiness or uncoordinated movements
Low or high muscle tone
Balance difficulties
Doesn’t like feet leaving the ground (toilet, climbing frames)
Difficulties with coordinating both sides of the body.
Midline crossing impairments (doesn’t cross midline of the body easily and freely during daily activities)
Poor ability to go up and down stairs or balance on one foot at an age-appropriate time
Difficulty with the concept of right and left
Poor ball skills (hands and feet)
Avoidance of tasks and games that require gross motor skills
Oral Motor/Oral Sensory skills
Excessive drooling
Difficulty moving on from breast or bottle.
Difficulty using a cup or straw at an age-appropriate time.
Inability to eat certain foods (meats, tough or chewy foods)
Child appears tired after eating
Baby losing a lot of fluid from around the mouth or lips when bottle or breast feeding
Older child loses excessive liquid or food from his or her mouth when drinking or chewing
Chewing in the front of the mouth, rather than over the molars
Child excessively mouths toys or objects beyond an age-appropriate time
Play Skills
Not joining in with others during play, preferring to play by themselves
Moving between activities quickly
Difficulty with imaginative play
Can’t begin play by themselves/needs adult guidance
Different ways of exploring toys
Repetitive play (e.g. lining up toys, spinning wheels) for an extended time
Preference for the ‘same’ play themes or activities
Wandering without engaging in play
Difficulties playing what another person may want to play
Inability to share or turn take with others
Sensory Processing
Overly responsive or heightened reactivity to sound, touch, or movement
Easily distracted by sensory inputs (e.g. visual/auditory)
Under-reactive to sensations (e.g., high pain tolerance, doesn't notice cuts/bruises)
Emotionally reactive and unable to self-soothe
Constantly moving, jumping, crashing, bumping
Difficulty coping with changes to routines, environments and activities.
Social Interaction Skills
Difficulty interacting socially and engaging with family or friends
Not coping in the childcare, kindy or school environments
Trouble adapting to new environments or activities
Delayed language skills
Preference for one subject (e.g., space, universe, dinosaurs, trains, lifts)
Visual Processing
Difficulty writing due to the following:
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copying shapes and letters or numbers accurately
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spacing and using the whole page appropriately
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sizes of letters
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reversals of letters and number beyond age 7
Difficulty recognising letters
Losing their place when reading or copying from the board
Difficulty copying either from the board or another paper
Differences in eye-contact during everyday interactions
Difficulty discriminating or finding objects among other things