Theories Of Occupational Therapy

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Occupational Therapy is a field that has been around for awhile, but is a professional field that is becoming more popular due to the demands in the health industry. Occupational Therapy involves assisting people across a wide age range. The theory of occupational therapy is to help a person with some type of impairment be able to do the things they want to and need to. Many interventions involve helping children with disabilities so they are able to fully participate in school and social situations. Occupational therapy is also used when someone is trying to recover from an injury and they need to regain skills that many people take for granted every day. Occupational therapy can also help in adults when they experience physical and cognitive…show more content…
Occupational therapy among children with cerebral palsy covers many aspects of the person’s life. Skills that occupational therapy might focus on include everyday skills such as those involved in eating, getting dressed, writing, and manipulating toys. Most of the times treatment occurs with a therapist individually or sometimes in groups depending on what the activity is. Many times there are development stages that a “normal” child will follow, however a child who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy may not follow the normal sequence of development. Learning movement skills are a very important part of development in children. Children with cerebral can be limited with any activities due to many sensory motor and cognitive impairments. The use of therapeutic interventions can help independence and increase the success of daily living (Eliasson & Burtner, 260, 2008). Motor learning is defined as processes that are associated with practice or experience that lead to permanent changes in the capacity of movement, basically they are able to get around better due to some muscle memory. There are three stages to motor learning process. The three stages are the cognitive phase, associative phase, and autonomous phase. During the cognitive phase the learner is new to a specific task and will try to learn different strategies so they can be successful. During the association phase the learner has…show more content…
Occupational therapists will use methods like putting pegs into boards or threading beads onto a string to help master important motor skills. While doing this, the therapist will encourage the child to point to which peg they are going to pick up or which color bead they will string next so that way they are constantly getting movement in their fingers. Athetoids cerebral palsy is more on the movement end of the body rather than the range, whereas a child with spastic cerebral palsy may have trouble because their movement is more limited. The occupational therapist will teach a child with hemiplegic cerebral palsy to support themselves with the hand that is not affected by the disability and then later will be able to use the affected hand with assistance but they will improve on daily tasks with more practice. The child with ataxic cerebral palsy will need to be able to be shown how to control their finger movements because sometimes they are unable to stop movement of the digits. Any treatments that a child receives must be approved by the child’s parents. However, none of the treatment plans that the occupational therapist presents come across to the child as harmful. Most the of tasks done with the occupational therapist are fun for the child, and they think it is more play time as they incorporate toys and games into the treatment sessions (Blencowe, 79.
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