Definitions of Occupational Therapy terms:
Autistic Spectrum Disorders: The symptoms of autistic spectrum disorders can range from very mild to severe. Individuals with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social interactions, communication, and sensory processing. Typical behaviors include poor eye contact, impairment in social exchanges, stereotyped and repetitive use of language, repetitive motor mannerisms, inflexible routines, and preoccupation with a narrow interest.
Coordination Disorder: A medical diagnosis that includes poor motor performance and delayed motor milestones that interfere with the child's academic achievement and activities of daily living. The category includes children with motor planning problems, as well as children who have clumsy movements.
Dysgraphia: Dysgraphia refers to a difficulty in writing. The child may have difficulty in motor planning for learning writing skills, in coordination for writing tasks, or in visual motor integration to direct his writing activities.
Dyspraxia: Difficulty with planning unfamiliar movements that results from poor body awareness, which in turn is based on poor processing of tactile, proprioceptive, and vestibular sensory information. Motor planning, or praxis, is the process that a child uses to figure out how to use his or her hands and body in such skilled tasks as playing with toys, using tools, building a structure, or imitating another child's play. Motor planning involves having an idea about what one wants to do, then sequencing actions to accomplish the plan.
Fine Motor Deficits: Difficulty with manipulative skills required for play, self care, and academics. This may include dressing, buttoning, tying, writing, cutting, building, or other skills performed with the hands.
Regulatory Disorder(self regulation): Regulation is an internal process of adjustment in the nervous system that maintains internal order and underlies the ability to adapt to new situations. When a child has poor self regulation, he or she may seek needed input through an activity that might be disorganizing, rather than through an activity that will help to regain the balance in the nervous system that is needed to make appropriate responses to environmental demands.
Sensory Defensiveness: A negative reaction to a sensory experience that most others would consider neutral or pleasant. Sensory defensiveness may be present in each sensory system. Tactile defensiveness refers to hypersensitivity in the skin and tactile system. Auditory defensiveness refers to hypersensitivity to certain types of sound. Gravitational Insecurity refers to hypersensititvity to movement. Oral tactile defensiveness refers to tactile defensiveness in the mouth.
Sensory Integration: refers to the process whereby the nervous system takes in and processes sensation from the body and the environment, and then uses it to plan and organize behavior.
Sensory Integrative Disorder: Difficulty with the central nervous system processing and interpretation of sensation, especially vestibular (movement awareness) , proprioceptive (sensation from muscles and joints), tactile (touch), visual, and auditory (hearing) information, and difficulty with the way that the nervous system organizes the sensory information to allow the child to adapt and respond to the environment.
Sensory Modulation Disorders: A child with a sensory modulation disorder has difficulty in regulating and organizing his or her reactions to sensory experiences in an adaptive manner. The child may over-or under-respond to sensory input from the body or the environment. Children who under-respond fail to react to the intensity of an experience in a typical way. Their responses may seem dulled. For these children, it takes a lot of sensory input to get their system activated. Children who over-respond to sensory input react very strongly, and they often react negatively. These children are often described as having sensory defensiveness, because they have strong negative reactions to experiences that most people do not perceive as negative. These children often have difficulty in self-calming.
SIPT Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests: These tests were developed by A. Jean Ayres to evaluate aspects of motor planning, tactile discrimination, visual perception, and balance in children 4 through 8 years of age.
Visual Perceptual Skills: The visual system takes information from the environment, organizes it, and interprets what the individual sees. These processes are important in orienting oneself in space, and in relation to objects, and in providing information and detail about the environment. Visual perceptual skills allow the child to discriminate between figures or objects, to recognize pattern, and to remember what has been seen before. The ability to associate other sensory information with what is learned through vision is the product of sensory integration.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Who may request an occupational therapy screening or evaluation for an infant/child? Anyone can make a referral. A physician's referral is not required for an evaluation, but a prescription from a physician is required before therapy can be begun for legal and insurance purposes.
Can you provide in-service, or educational training? Providing in-service education training to teachers, parent groups, physicians and other professionals is an important component of our practice. We also welcome visitors to our clinics. Please contact us for more information.