Occupational Therapy for Children with Autism

occupational therapy is essential for children with autism for bringing significant improvement in their lives to make them self-dependent.  Occupational therapy is, generally used for the autistic children and the other people who all are trying to recover from strokes or other neurological disorders. It brings substantial development in their quality of life. Here, we will discuss the occupational therapy for children with autism only due to the constraint of space.

Generally, the autistic children are lacking in every aspect of life. Occupational therapy is used for improving the fine motor skills, gross motor skills, cognitive skills, and sensory processing of autistic individuals and teaching them to perform their different activities of daily living (ADL). The Occupational therapists can provide them a methodical training to improve upon their different skills and teach them self-care, play, and school tasks.

In this article, I would like to talk about the various techniques and practical aspects of occupational therapy for children with autism. The technique may vary from child to child depending upon their degree of disability and other environmental conditions.

Plan of Occupational Therapy for Children with Autism

Once a child is diagnosed with autism the parents need to find out suitable therapists. The therapists will assess the weakness/strength of the child through evaluation and find out necessary therapies required to gear up his/her different functional activities. The occupational therapists, generally, assess the physical, social, emotional, sensory, and cognitive abilities/disabilities and the needs of the autistic children as per their age. Then they apply a holistic approach to develop a plan and suggest the required types of therapies including the number of therapy sessions.

The plan involves the parents, teachers, and therapist for the improvement of the autistic individual both in the home and school environment. Establishing the relationship between the therapist and the patient is an important part of a successful therapy program. The therapists focus on the analysis, adaptation, and uses of occupational therapy. The therapists help the autistic individuals in improving their daily occupations to enable them to live fully within the community.

Occupational Therapy Improves Fine Motor Skills

The occupational therapist helps the autistic children to develop their fine motor skills by strengthening the tiny body muscles. The therapies are conducted using different types of therapy items/toys. Some of the therapy items/sensory toys are shown here. Here are some examples of therapies for improving fine motor skills; holding some objects by hand, playing with small balls with hands, cutting something by using scissors etc. It can be done in the following ways:

• Playing with therapy putty to make toys of different shapes is a perfect example of the occupational therapy for children with autism in improving their fine motor skills.
• Playing with Legos, and creative mosaic boards can also improve the fine motor skills of the autistic children.
• Playing with small hand massage ball, hand massage therapy ball, hand massage softball will also help them to increase their fine motor skills.
• Stringing beads by the hands is another way of improving the fine motor skills of the special needs children.

Occupational Therapy Improves Gross Motor Skills

Gross motor skills focus on the activities involving the major body parts or the whole body of the autistic children. Following are the ways of improving Gross Motor Skills:

• Running, walking, swimming, playing football/handball/volleyball etc.
• Jumping with jump bag or kangaroo bag is a very good instrument for increasing gross motor skills as it involves hands, legs, and the whole body.
• Skipping, climbing stairs, riding the bike are also good examples of therapies for improving gross motor skills.

Occupational Therapy Improves Cognitive Skills

Cognitive skills are the coordination of body and mind like thinking, problem-solving etc. For example, a child does not know how to bring out books from his school bag is his lacking of cognitive skills. Again playing with Autism Track 88 and Balance Board can improve the cognitive skills of the children with autism.

Occupational Therapy Eliminate Sensory Overload

The autistic children, many a time, face sensory integration as their brain can not coordinate and process too much information received from the environment at a time. So they feel overwhelmed and over-stimulated. Occupational therapy can eliminate the sensory overload to calm down the children. The sensory overload can be eliminated by biking, riding, sitting on the Therapy ball, Balance cushion, Hammock, jumping over Trampoline and playing with Scooter, Balance board, and Balance bike etc.

The occupational therapists use the brushing technique by using different types of brushes like sensory body brush, sensory hairbrush, vibrating toothbrush to calm down the child against sensory stimulation.

Occupational Therapy Helps to Learn Self-care, Play, and School Tasks

When an autistic child shows significant improvement in the fine motor skills, gross motor skills, cognitive skills, and sensory processing skills the child will start learning different day to day activities of life. The occupational therapists will try to teach following different activities of daily life for self-care, play, and school tasks devising a good plan so that the child can learn those in an easy way. Let us see here how the autistic children can be taught their ADL:

• Self-Care

  Self-care activities of a child include brushing teeth, combing hair, toileting, bathing, eating, drinking, dressing, tying shoelaces, arranging toys, playing with toys, outdoor plays, sleeping and other works of day to day life. The self-care of an autistic child can be improved by the following occupational therapies:
  a. Give a doll to your child and ask him/her to dress-up him/her. This way he will learn the technique of combing hair, fixing the zipper, buttoning the shirt etc.
  b. You can give your child a spoon and allow him/her to practice holding the spoon and feeding the doll.
  c. You can give your child Therapy Putty to make different types of food grains and feeding the doll.
  d. He can practice tying shoelaces of the dolls.

In this way, you can find tremendous improvement in the self-care of your autistic child.

• Play
  Generally, the autistic children do not know how to participate in the games with others. In that case, occupational therapy is essential for the children with autism. It will increase their power of socialization and keep them physically fit. My son Ferdous Mahi does not participate in any games. The therapists are trying hard to take him in the games and sports to increase his ability to play.

• School tasks

  School is the best place for teaching different things to a child as most of the child loves their school and the teachers. There are some tasks which need to be performed at the school. For example, opening school bag, finding books & pencils, cutting pencil, drawing, coloring, handwriting etc. The occupational therapists will find out the techniques to teach the above-mentioned school tasks to an autistic child.

There are some common techniques which can increase the general understanding of your child. Take him in front of the mobile set or computer and bring out some pictures of emotions like angry boy/girls, laughing boy/girl, crying boy/girl and show it to him/her explaining the different moods of an individual. Then ask her to identify those emotions.

We must remember that the autistic child should be taught different activities in an easier way, breaking down the works into small pieces. Again we are to teach them in the way they feel comfortable, not in our way.

Conclusion

Though autism is a lifelong disability, the autistic individual can have tremendous improvement in his /her life if we can devise and apply an effective plan of occupational therapy for them. It has been seen that the autistic individuals have attained close to normal life after applying the therapies. Different therapy items play an important role in providing occupational therapy for children with autism. We should practice occupational therapy for autism both in home and schools involving the parents, teachers and the therapists.