YOUR SPECIAL CHILD
The Jobs of Childhood
How OT helps kids socialize, learn, play
BY PJ FEINSTEIN
42 Washington FAMILY APRIL 2020
Skill-building To qualify for occupational therapy services,
your child has to be struggling with a func-
tional skill. OT works on the underlying defi-
cit that’s impacting a particular skill, not the
specific diagnosis.

According to Rosner, “autism spectrum dis-
orders are really prevalent;” however, OT can
also address orthopedic injuries, neurological
or brain injuries, mental health issues, sen-
sory processing disorders and developmental
delays. Because of this, occupational therapy
doesn’t fit neatly into a “medical box,” she
says. “We’re much more holistic than that.”
Not sure whether your child could ben-
efit from OT? The best thing you can do
is to ask an occupational therapist, Rosner
says. “If you’re having consistent behavioral
issues, deficits that are impacting func-
tion—especially if they’re not able to play,
socialize, engage with school or academic
tasks or engage in that social emotional
piece at home—then it’s worth coming in
to talk to us,” she says.

However, occupational therapists are not
allowed to make any kind of medical diag-
nosis. “That all comes from the physician,”
says Rosner. “We can tell you about your
child’s functional deficits, and we can assign
what we think is an appropriate [ICD-10
diagnosis] code.”
Rosner explains that it’s common for
occupational therapists to work with chil-
dren under the age of 3 who have been
assigned with a general developmental delay
but then start to show signs of autism spec-
trum disorder. Parents would then take that
information back to a physician or neuropsy-
chologist to assess.

Therapy or play?
If you decide to move ahead with an evalu-
ation, you may wonder why it looks like the
therapist is simply playing games with your
son or daughter. What the occupational
therapist is actually doing is looking at spe-
cific activities or movements to determine
whether they are being impaired. “As much
as we can, we try to make it engaging and
fun so that we can see the best performance
and a range of performances for that child,”
says Rosner.

Even after the initial evaluation, OT sessions
look a lot like play. “It can be really confusing
to send your child into therapy and be like,
‘they’re playing Connect 4, or they’re running
around an obstacle course,’” says Rosner,
explaining that play is how the brain devel-
ops. “Motor planning, coordination, cognition
or language—all of those are brain-based
skills—and play is a way for the child to auto-
matically access the parts of their brain that
work on developing those skills,” she says.

Plus, you can get more endurance, focus
and repetitions from a child in a playful set-
ting. “If I want a child to do 25 squats, and I
say, ‘Hey, do 25 squats,’ they’re going to look
at me like I have three heads,” Rosner says.

“But if all of a sudden there’s an alien lifeform
in the tiny ping pong balls all over the obsta-
cle course, and we have to pick them up very
carefully, I’m going to get 25 squats.”
ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS/FATCAMERA / SDI PRODUCTIONS
Those unfamiliar with
the profession may
be confused by the
recommendation, perhaps getting
tripped up by the word
“occupational.” What
does therapy relating
to a job or occupation
have to do with kids?
WHEN a child is struggling with social
interactions, schoolwork or playing at a deve-
lopmentally-appropriate level, occupational
therapy (OT) is often the recommended
course of treatment. But those unfamiliar
with the profession may be confused by the
recommendation, perhaps getting tripped
up by the word “occupational.” What does
therapy relating to a job or occupation have
to do with kids?
However, if you swap the word “occupa-
tional” for “daily activities,” the idea of occu-
pational therapy makes a lot more sense,
especially when it comes to children. After all,
what are some daily activities of childhood?
Socializing, learning and playing.

To help us gain a better understanding of
occupational therapy and how it can help
kids with disabilities, Washington FAM-
ILY talked to Taryn Rosner, OTR/L, OTD,
director of occupational therapy at Moco
Movement Center in Kensington, Maryland.

Here’s what we learned.