What is Self Regulation?

What is Self-Regulation? Self-regulation refers to a child’s ability to manage their emotions, behavior, and attention in various situations. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I often witness the crucial role self-regulation plays in a child’s occupational performance, encompassing daily activities like play, learning, and social interactions. Self-regulation encompasses the ability to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations. It involves the capacity to stay focused, control impulses, and adapt to changing circumstances. In the context of a child’s development, self-regulation extends to various domains, including emotional, cognitive, and behavioral regulation. Impact on Function Impaired self-regulation can significantly impact a child’s ability to engage in age-appropriate tasks. For instance, a child with challenges in regulating their emotions may cause a struggle to focus during classroom activities or face difficulties in forming meaningful peer relationships. Occupational performance relies heavily on a child’s capacity to navigate their internal state, adapt to environmental demands, and maintain a balance between arousal levels. In therapy, we utilize various strategies to support the development of a child’s self-regulation skills. These may include sensory integration activities, mindfulness exercises, co-regulation strategies, and structured routines to help children better understand and manage their emotions. Recognizing the importance of self-regulation is fundamental in fostering a child’s overall well-being and enhancing their participation in daily life. By Aja Perry, MS, OTR/L

What is Visual Motor and Why is it Important?

 

In occupational therapy, we work on many skills vital to a kid’s everyday life, one of those include visual motor skills. Visual motor skills are defined as being able to translate a visual image, or a visual plan, into a motor action - or in other words, taking what we see and turning it into movement in order to complete a task. They are the controlled coordination of the visual system (eyes, head, and neck) and the movement system (muscles, joints, and body parts). Visual motor skills include visual processing, visual perception, and hand-eye coordination, which are all needed for success in school, sports, crafts, games, dressing, or overall day to day life skills that Occupational Therapy addresses here at AKT. 

  Visual Processing is the movement of the eyes and ability to collect information. 

• Examples of visual processing activities you could try at home include: 

• Holding a picture up in front of your child with either shapes, words or a picture and having them draw/write what they see 

• Replicate a picture by building with legos

• Imitate a block design shown 

• Use play-dough to form shapes or letter shown 

• Creating patterns or finishing a pattern 

Visual perception is our ability to make sense of what we see. Visual perceptual skills are essential for everything from navigating our world to reading, writing, and manipulating items. Visual perception is made up of a complex combination of various skills including visual memory, visual closure, form constancy, visual spatial relations, visual discrimination, visual attention, visual sequential memory, and visual figure ground.

• Examples of visual perceptual activities to try at home include:

• I Spy Games

• Where’s Waldo

• Word searches

• Memory games

• Puzzles

Hand-eye coordination is the way a person’s hands and eyesight work together effectively and efficiently which allows us to manipulate and manage objects and items. These motor skills allow us to collect visual information and use it in a motor action. Eye-hand coordination requires fine motor dexterity, strength, shoulder stability, core stability, etc.

• Examples of eye-hand coordination include:

• Catching a ball

• Manipulating pegs into a pegboard (i.e. Lite Bright)

• Lacing a lacing card

• Cutting activities 

Visual motor skills are an important part of childhood development and are needed to complete almost any activity. Without visual motor skills, a child couldn't catch a ball, complete a puzzle, or put on their shoes. It can also affect a child’s handwriting and school performance as well. Here at AKT, we work to improve these skills in occupational therapy to help kiddos succeed in their daily activities, at school, in sports and while they work on their hobbies! 

Elizabeth Bowden OTD, OTR/L

Transitions Made Easier

                       

One of the most frequently occurring topics I have been approached by parents with is how they can help their child with overall transitions. As a therapist, I have encountered many instances where a child has a difficult time transitioning not only in the clinic but in a classroom, home, and social setting with their peers. 

The most important factors to remember are time and consistency. With time, the child will adapt and become flexible to the changes and transitions occurring. A key word that is frequently talked about here at AKT is FLEXIBILITY. This is a term we use often in occupational, speech, and physical therapy. 

Throughout our life span we learn to become flexible and adaptable with time. This starts at a young age when the introduction to new challenges and new experiences are presented. Growth and development encompass flexibility. With time, transitions become easier and we learn to adapt to the changes we are faced with. However, as much as flexibility is important, consistency is important too in the sense of continuing to expose children to various scenarios in which they experience change leading to transitions and flexibility. This will help in the ease of transitions decreasing any behavioral outbursts that may occur whether it is fear from separating from the parent or overall difficulty transitioning to various environments or tasks.

There are a few ways in which we can help children with their overall ability to transition. As mentioned above, exposure is a key component to learning how to effectively transition throughout various environments. The more a child is exposed to various environments, the more adaptable they become. One great way to help with transitions is a visual schedule. This provides the child with guided times and expectations of transitions in various directed activities. This is a great resource to incorporate at home as well to help with transitioning between day to day tasks. For example; a morning to afternoon schedule focusing on the task for the day such as getting dressed, school, time for homework. This provides clear expectations for the child as well as a visual reference for them to refer back to. Another way to help your child with transitions is to provide a timer. For example; if a task is concluding and your child has a difficult time ending the task, a timer is a great way to provide those visual and auditory clues that the task has concluded and it is time to move on. This may be used for activities and self care tasks as well as the utilization of a visual schedule.

Occupational, physical, and speech therapy have incorporated strategies to assist all of our patients and their families with transitions to maximize the outcomes across all environments. If you have any further questions in regards to helping your child with transitions, please feel free to reach out to the AKT team! 

Melissa R. Pueschel

COTA/L