How Can Occupational Therapy Help a Child with ADHD?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]How Can Occupational Therapy Help a Child with ADHD?

To understand the benefits of occupational therapy (OT) for children who’ve been diagnosed with ADHD you must understand what both things are – ADHD and OT. Only then can you really understand how your child will benefit from it.

Understanding What ADHD Is

Children who have ADHD have several characteristics in common, including:

• Not paying attention to details
• Being disorganized
• Problems with listening and concentration
• Inability to finish tasks because they’re easily distracted and can’t sit still
• Losing things
• Forgetting things
• Fidgeting
• Excessive talking
• Difficulty waiting their turn leading to them interrupting others

Understanding What OT Is

OT’s primary goal is to help children who have ADHD participate in the activities that are involved with everyday living. Your child’s OT therapist will provide them with two types of strategies to help them here. These are:

• Remedial strategies: Ones that help your child restore any capacity in which they’ve become impaired. This includes interventions that address your child’s inability to pay attention while in the classroom and be successful academically. For instance, an OT therapist may work with your child to create schedules, reminders, lists, and use organizational tools.
• Adaptive strategies: Those that re-establish your child’s routines and habit or help them learn ways to cope with any problems they may be encountering in their daily living. An example of this is simply breaking down tasks into steps – something that’s important because most children with ADHD find it difficult to know where and how to get started on something.

How OT Benefits ADHD

Now that you have a better understanding of what your child with ADHD is facing and how they can be helped by OT, here are some of the ways they’ll benefit:

• Your child will develop inner core strength. They’ll learn how to sit still and remain there for an extended period.
• They will grow better when it comes to sensory processing. This is important because everything in your child’s environment (e.g. sounds, visual aspects, smells) is affecting their ability to concentrate and regulate their body so it remains calm and alert instead of becoming so excited it can no longer function.

Now that you can understand how your child who has ADHD can benefit from OT, if you live in McKinney, Texas you’ll want to check out Speech & OT. We offer top of the line OT services that many children with ADHD have benefited from over the years. Your child deserves to be next.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]