Occupational Therapy FAQ's

Questions to ask from Occupational therapist in South Africa

Today we're going to consider some of the generally asked inquiries we get as Occupational Therapist. The initial one, "What is occupational therapy?". Occupational therapy is about function and whole-being, from the motor to social-emotional skill, from sleeping to play or being playful, it is about experiencing the fullness of what life has to offer. We support people to make it better to do the tasks they have to do each day.

How regarding OT vs PT? Occupational therapy is going to work on again, those working independent works, encouraging people to become better at supporting themselves, dressing, navigating what they have to do through the day, as working independent selves. Whether they recovering from an injury or surgery, or as children developing these abilities that there look to be some obstacles. Physical therapy is likewise working on the physical movement of those things, operating the person's surroundings, becoming to and from where they want to go, while they're doing what they need to do.

One of the queries we get most frequently is "Why does my kid need OT if they don't have a job?" People laugh when they ask this question, Because mostly when someone hears the word "occupational therapy", they think about occupation or job.

Occupational Therapy South Africa helps you to be the best that you can at your job of living no matter what you have to do during that life. What ages and diagnoses do occupational therapists work with? Occupational therapists work from newborns up until people at the end of their life. We can work with newborns in the NICU after they're born with feeding difficulties or we can work with toddlers and preschoolers learning to develop new skills, work with school-going kids, kids having developmental challenges, and kids recovering from some kind of surgery or injury. We also work with adults who recovery from surgeries and injuries. So an Occupational therapist works with every age peoples.

Do OTs work with just handwriting? No, OTs provide help to most children on how to read, write, and learn. It's just a huge component of what they do every day at home and in the classroom.

This is a question you're going to ask later I think, but sensory concerns as well. So there's a whole bunch more than just handwriting that OTs do. OTs can address feeding on kind of two different angles, the most common one is going to be getting the food from the table to the mouth. Helping children learn how to properly hold and manipulate utensils, but there is some therapist who is trained in oral motor techniques that can help with the manipulation of the food to assist with swallowing.

The big difference is going to be speech therapists are going to do the swallowing and the oral part of it, but some OTs can overlap into that quite part if they've been prepared to do verbal motor techniques as well. Another inquiry, "How to identify sensory processing disorder in my child? Sensory processing disorder is when someone having a problem in talking, processing stimulation, reading, and learning, etc. All the things that, you hear, you touch, you see, you feel, are sensory. And if anyone facing a hard time dealing with those forms of problems, it might look like they are having some behavioral difficulties, it might look like they are withdrawing from the circumstances, or trying out specific types of facts that are maybe improper or risky.

Occupational therapists in South Africa help you if your child is showing signs or characteristics that are commonly seen in children that have sensory processing disorders. If your child may show some sensory things, doesn't mean surely that they have autism. But we can help you through our expert who can do diagnostic testing and verify or dismiss the diagnosis of autism.