Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Tips and Strategies

The following handouts have been designed by Cork & Kerry Primary Care Paediatric Occupational Therapists to provide you with tips and strategies to help develop your child's skills as they grow.

Further advice specific to your child's strengths and needs can be provided upon meeting with your Occupational Therapist.

Related Files

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Play skills

Play is all about fun and enjoyment and is key to learning in the early years of your child’s development. This handout will provide you with strategies to develop your child’s play skills.

Format:PDF|File Size:582KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Developing hand dominance

Hand dominance is an essential part of helping your child to develop pre-writing, handwriting and fine motor skills. This handout will provide you with strategies to help your child to establish hand dominance.

Format:PDF|File Size:306KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Self-care skills

Daily self-care activities can include dressing, toileting, feeding, dental hygiene and bathing. As a child grows it is important that they begin to develop independence in these tasks. This handout will provide you with strategies to help improve your child’s self-care skills.

Format:PDF|File Size:421KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Fine motor skills

Fine motor skills refer to the coordinated and controlled movements the small muscles of the hand and fingers make when picking up a small object or placing a coin into the slot of a piggy bank box. This handout will provide you with strategies to help develop your child’s fine motor skills.

Format:PDF|File Size:591KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Pre-writing skills

Pre-writing skills are the foundational skills for handwriting. These skills can be developed when drawing, colouring, copying shapes and practising to pick up writing tools. This handout will provide you with strategies to help develop your child’s pre-writing skills.

Format:PDF|File Size:496KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Handwriting skills

Handwriting is a complex skills that requires postural control, fine motor skills, visual perceptual skills and motor planning. This handout will provide you with strategies to help develop your child’s handwriting skills.

Format:PDF|File Size:340KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Visual Perception skills

Visual perception allows your child to interpret and make sense of what they see within their environment. Visual perceptual skills are important for everyday tasks such as recognising shapes and letters. This handout will provide you with strategies to help develop your child’s visual perception skills.

Format:PDF|File Size:1.04MB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Gross Motor Skills

Gross Motor Skills are skills that develop using the large muscles of the body in a coordinated and controlled way. Gross motor skills develop through practice and repetition. This handout will provide you with strategies to help develop your child’s gross motor skills.

Format:PDF|File Size:542KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Sensory Processing

As a child grows and begins to explore their surroundings they learn to firstly notice/register information from their senses, then process it and then respond appropriately. This is called Sensory Processing. This handout will provide you with general tips and strategies to help your child to learn to process information received from their senses.

Format:PDF|File Size:702KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Organisational skills

Being organised involves being able to plan, initiate, sequence and complete a task within a required time. As your child grows the need to be organised increases as they gain independence in self-care tasks including getting dressed. This handout will provide you with strategies to help improve your child’s organisational skills

Format:PDF|File Size:674KB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Transitioning to Primary School

Transitioning from Pre-School to Primary School can be a time of excitement, worry and change for young children and their parents. The following information will provide you with tips and strategies to prepare your child for this transition.

Format:PDF|File Size:3.38MB

Paediatric Occupational Therapy: Transitioning to Secondary School

Transitioning from Primary School to Post-Primary/Secondary School can be a big change for young people. Meeting new teachers, building new friendships, scheduling study and completing state examinations will all be new experiences for your child. The following information will provide you with tips and strategies to prepare your child for this transition.

Format:PDF|File Size:3.54MB