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Social Skill Development & Community

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SOCIAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT & COMMUNITY

Last month we spoke about enhancing our understanding and development of safety and connection between the caregiver and a child. In the time that’s passed since our last blog,  so much has happened at Explore and Soar and with our families! With school and extracurricular activities, celebrations, catch ups and holidays all occurring over the last 6 weeks, as well as the constant uncertainty of Covid, we have been forging a path towards a new normal.

I have often thought about how exhausting assimilating into a ‘normal’ social life is for me, my team and our families. We have gone from months of being stuck in our own homes, to all of a sudden being out and about all the time. It has been exciting to reconnect with our friends, family and community in ways we did pre-pandemic, yet such a change does come with a few consequences. 

Notably, our children are exhausted! 

They simply haven’t had this much social stimulation in a long time. They have been out on weekends and are now experiencing their first proper end of term fatigue. And let’s be honest, as parents, we too are exhausted and needing some down time. 

As much as I want to discuss social skills and interaction in this month’s blog, I’d like to focus on finding the balance between socialising and creating the time for rest and integration (processing) time. 

Socially, developing these skills occur at the commencement of regulation and engagement (please refer to our previous posts), but social skills are dependent on a child’s ability to process sensory information internally and externally (from the world around them). This is completed through sound (middle ear), movement (vestibular system found within the ear), and the visual system (eyes), in conjunction with other systems in the body. Additionally these organs and sensory systems are all connected through cranial (head) nerves. When we are processing information, our sensory systems alert and motivate our body to carry this information through our nerves. Our cranial nerves are located on the face and in the brain, which allows us as young children to begin understanding non-verbal social cues. There are a lot of nerves that are connected to the mouth and eyes, from our ears, which when working together, create facial expressions and we then in turn use words to express ourselves, allowing us to socially interact with others using both non-verbal and verbal communications. 

If our children have challenges processing sound, visually tracking or moving their body, just their emotional regulation and social skill development can be impacted. Unfortunately children can’t always tell us what is going on inside their body with the use of words, but they can tell us with their behaviour. 

So let’s take 5 minutes to reflect on how your children have been over the last month. Ask yourself these questions:

How do they look? How are they feeling? Are they regulating through their emotions? Are they coping at school? How fatigued are they? When you are communicating and connecting with your children, are they seeing your facial expressions? Are they able to read your social cues in order to pick up on what comes next? 

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then please take some time to work on safety and connection with them. Support their regulation, calm their bodies and nervous systems. Pausing and giving time for their bodies to rest is optimal integration time to support gains in all development but also supports them in understanding demands socially through their sensory systems. 

So many of our children are easily overwhelmed by sounds, visual input, touch and movement. When they are not able to process these inputs optimally, it can greatly impact how they socially connect with you, as parents, their siblings, and additionally how they cope in the school and community environments, when connecting with their friends.

Which brings me to socialisation in schools. Is your child having difficulties socialising with their friends at school, is it becoming more of a problem now than in previous years? And how can you help your children more?

Please reach out and chat to us if you are worried about this! Each of your clinicians will have an understanding of your child’s needs and when we are working with them, we are developing their foundational skills to further support their social skills, or additionally we are specifically working on skills that can further expand their capacity to interact with peers.

Some strategies we work towards developing are:

  • Understanding their feelings.
  • Understanding others feelings through body language and facial expressions, such as happy face, surprised face, frustration or sadness.
  • Understanding whole body listening concepts and active listening when interacting with friends or a group of friends.
  • Developing group plans, negotiating and turn taking within these activities.
  • Expected, unexpected and flexible thinking when working with friends. 

At home there are things you can do to further expand your children’s social skills, such as:

  • Understanding which emotions your children feel or express to you. How many are there? (remember this will differ pending age and their self-regulation skills). 
  • Can they ask you what is wrong if your mood or facial expressions change?
  • Playing silly faces, can they guess emotions from facial expressions, such as sad, excited, surprised?
  • Play a game together that you all contribute to, each having an idea and adding everyone’s ideas together, to form a group plan and play as a family. 
  • Play boardgames that are chance related to expand on regulating through waiting their turn, winning and losing, as well as supporting each other as a whole family. 

As we are socially interacting with others in the community, school and different events, in order to further support your child’s tolerance in busy environments or supporting their reintegration into the community, you need to take notice of fatigue. Please consider different strategies that can support you and your children re-entering into the social world such as:

  • Reducing sounds, visual input and high energy movement to help them process the world around them.
  • Provide some visuals and plan for the day to support their understanding of routine and expectations.
  • When the days are not as busy, take your time or allow for transition times between activities.
  • Provide moments of deep pressure hugs, fetal positioning, ice chips, inversion activities, respiration or squishes to support their regulation and calming of the sensory system for increased engagement and interaction with peers.
  • Reduce time spent in the community or at events to support a transition back into the community and increase tolerance of high sensory inputs over an extended period of time.  

Allowing and providing our children with the best support in order to allow their sensory systems to engage socially and be present with others is paramount. It is vital in the current environment due to the reduction in time spent socialising during the last 24 months. Be kind to yourselves and to your kids, you have permission to take it slow. You do not need to say yes to everything! Think about what is best for you and your family, and focus on that!

We hope to continue seeing all of you venturing out into the communities, reconnecting with friends and expanding upon our children’s social skills. If you think we can further help you with these skills and expand on our support offerings, please don’t hesitate to contact me or your treating clinician.

Until next time,
Jess

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 13, 2022

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Safety and Connection

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SAFETY AND CONNECTION

As we continue to break down and share with you the way Explore and Soar supports our clients and families in our year of ‘self-awareness and growth’, it’s only fitting that after having dived into our continuity support plans and parent coaching strategies, we address the topic of ‘safety and connection’ with you. 

Upon reflection and after reviewing a large amount of continued professional development over the years as a practitioner, one valuable skill set remains a constant. This integral part of development is always discussed at the beginning of each theory or model for paediatrics. It is the ultimate foundational skill required for us as human beings in order to begin our journey of  overall development; from infant > toddler > child > preteen > teenager > adult. 

These skills are safety and connection. 

The premise being, no developmental milestone or emotional and social skills can be obtained optimally without the foundations of safety & connection. 

Establishing a sense of safety and security is essential to all stages of development, with connection following this. 

As occupational therapists when working with our clients and families, we begin by establishing what safety looks like for each family, in order to use our therapeutic practices in the most efficient and successful manner. Before any goals can be targeted or reached, it is essential for a sense of safety and security to be built between our client and their therapist. 

As a therapist when working with families, to be able to identify their strengths, boundaries and what makes them feel most secure allows for adaptive intervention methods. When this occurs, there is a natural sense of relief and sense of calm that is not only beneficial for our parents and caregivers but with our children as well. If there is no sense of safety between the clinician and parent/caregiver, then the safety the child will feel with the therapist can be altered, impacting all therapy intervention and a child’s ability to achieve their desired goals and skills in regards to development. 

Safety and connection work simultaneously. 

Connection is a feeling. It is often described as the way in which someone unconsciously connects to another’s energy and then interacts with your own. Think about when you meet someone for the first time. With some people there is a sense of calm and connection straight away, like you have known them your whole life. But then others can also have the opposite effect, with a great sense of disconnection. These feelings are our internal navigation system that helps determine whether we are feeling safe and connected or whether there is a potential threat to our sense of safety. Acknowledging these feelings then allows us to make a choice on how to respond. 

Personally, many of my decisions as an adult, especially in work have been navigated by my sense of safety and connection. I wanted to provide the support that I didn’t have growing up in a small rural town. I want to provide the knowledge, research and intervention strategies that I have learned over my lifetime to families in order to enhance their sense of safety and connection, especially in our remote areas that lack greater levels of support. At the heart of my why is relationships. And establishing Explore and Soar as a safe and connected space for our families is paramount. 

Ensuring that your children feel a consistent sense of safety and connection is what allows them to evolve and grow as a human.  

Connection is established from birth, however due to individual differences for each child, parent and/or caregiver we all have different ways of establishing these connections or different individual reasons as to why some of us may have difficulty establishing connections.  

Connection is the foundation to any relationship and is paramount for all of us as humans to feel connected. The bond between parent and child from birth is where this all begins. A model that we use within Explore and Soar is the DIR Model (Developmental Individual Differences Relationships-Based Model originally developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan) which allows us to work on providing strategies, interventions through parent coaching and relationship approaches to help our parents and children obtain a healthy parent-child connection. 

We seek to support the development of these skills in order to allow your children to enhance their own skills through a model of “Shared Attention and Regulation” – being the foundational pillar. 

It has been extremely exciting for us to explore the recent research addressing more specific developmental skills in relation to connection. These skills contribute to the beginning of development and enhance the child’s relationships and connectedness to both parent and self, ultimately allowing for future emotional and social development to occur.

So how do we as humans actually establish connectedness? 

We establish this through;

  • Mutual gaze – visually connecting in face to face interactions for connection of shared emotions which is foundational and earlier than shared attention (joint attention), through games with parent and child (Rollins, De Froy, Campbell, & Hoffman, 2021). 
  • Unconscious mimicry (shared actions), is linked to movement and body synchrony, outlining the importance of rhythmicity with movement, mirroring body language to connect to others (Peper, Van Der Wal & Begeer, 2016).
  • Synchrony – shared social timing, known as timed relationships, some examples include predictable rhythms of mother for baby to connect with such as heart rate, respiration, reciprocity (tone) of voice, sleep/wake cycles and an ability to have an interactive and rhythmic flow of interaction to connect the parent and child’s emotional state to match (foundations of co-regulation and regulation) (Feldman, 2007). 

These established skills result in a parent child synchronicity and connectedness, reinforcing the sense of safety as outlined above and supporting overall emotional skill development.

I personally love working within this field because you can learn so many different models of support and expand your intervention approach and strategies for all children, as no child is ever the same. As I continue to work in this field, I have begun to see each model overlap and support one another.

Safety and connection is vital in building the foundations to co-regulation and regulation. It greatly impacts social development which we will be discussing in greater detail next month.

Articles

Geller, S. (2018). Therapeutic Presence and Polyvagal Theory: Principles and Practices for Cultivating Effective Therapeutic Relationships. From Porges and Dana (2018) Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies. New York: WW Norton 

Feldman, R. (2007). Parent–infant synchrony and the construction of shared timing; physiological precursors, developmental outcomes, and risk conditions. Journal of Child psychology and Psychiatry, 48(3-4), 329-354. 

Peper, C. L. E., van der Wal, S. J., & Begeer, S. (2016). Autism in action: reduced bodily connectedness during social interactions?. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1862. 

Rollins, P. R., De Froy, A., Campbell, M., & Hoffman, R. T. (2021). Mutual gaze: An active ingredient for social development in toddlers with ASD: A randomized control trial. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51(6), 1921-1938.

Until next time,
Jess

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 3, 2022

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School Readiness

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SCHOOL READINESS

Another month gone! That means that 2022 is fast approaching us. And with a new year, comes a new group of children and their families making the scary and exciting transition into ‘big school!’


Transitioning into the primary school setting can be a tricky time for lots of children. It is a very exciting period, filled with new friends, new teachers and new activities. But it can also be a stressful time, as there is a lot of change in our routines, structures and expectations within every day. It is important that we support our children to make a happy, supported and successful transition into ‘big school’.

School readiness skills are about more than just reading, writing and maths. It is easy to get caught up on these details, wanting our kids to be proficient in basic handwriting, counting, or even being able to identify letters and words. It is however, really important to look at the whole picture and holistically support our children to build all of the smaller less recognised skills that will support them in achieving success in Kindergarten.

School readiness refers to the foundational skills that support a child’s body, mind and wellbeing as they transition into the primary school environment. 

The first thing to remember when starting the transition to school, is that your child is going to school to continue to learn and develop their skills such as reading, writing and maths. These are not skills that they are expected to be perfect at on their first day. However, there are lots of activities and tasks that children will be expected to independently perform when they start Kindergarten. These range from self-care skills, to fine and gross motor skills, and even social and play skills. 

Let’s start by thinking about the self-care skills that a child needs to be able to independently complete within an average school day. They will need to be able to dress themselves in their school uniform at the start of the day, undress/dress to go to the bathroom at school, and undress at the end of the school day. School uniforms often have buttons, zips, shoelaces and even ties depending on the school you are attending. Children will be expected to be able to go to the toilet independently without supervision during the school day. At lunch and recess breaks children will be expected to open and close their own lunch boxes, unwrap snacks and packaging such as chip packets, zip-lock bags, drink bottles and lids.

Developing a child’s fine motor skills is another important step in preparing them for success in school. For the transition to school, focus on building basic foundational skills such as being able to open and close a school bag. Teacher’s may expect that children can hold a pencil and use it to write their own name, draw a person, form pre-writing shapes (vertical line, horizontal line, circle, x, diagonal line), and colour in an up to down and circular motion. Other skills that will be explored are holding and using scissors to cut paper and gluing for arts and craft. 

Another important skill set to support the transition to school, will be a child’s use of gross motor skills. I’m not talking about being able to play a full game of team sports such as soccer or netball but it is important that our kids are able to safely play on playground equipment and participate in common childhood games such as tips, hopscotch, hide and seek or bullrush. Age-appropriate gross motor skills for children transitioning to school include running, jumping with two feet, hopping on one foot, skipping and balancing. It is also important for children to have developed core strength and postural stability for use within the classroom so that they are able to sit cross legged on the mat for floor time, as well as sit in their chair at the desk for extended periods of time while they complete activities. 

Children learn and develop the majority of their foundational skills through ‘play’. Therefore, it is so important that our children transitioning into the school environment have developed social and play skills such as shared attention and engagement with peers. Children aged 4 years and older are expected to engage in ‘cooperative play’. This means that a child will play with other children, showing interest in both toys or the activity, as well as the other children or child they are playing with. At this age it is also expected that children will engage in pretend play themes and making use of their imagination within play. Further social skills that will be expected in the school environment include sharing, turn-taking, patience and whole body listening skills.

A skill that you might not have considered yet, but is imperative for success in the school environment is a child’s emotional regulation skills. This refers to a child’s ability to find and maintain the level of arousal in which they are able to best engage in the world around them. Think about whether your child can maintain and adapt their own emotions, behaviour and arousal appropriately to suit the activity and situation at hand. For example, if a child is playing a new exciting game, do they get over-excited and silly to the point that they are no longer able to engage in the game? Or, do they become angry or upset because the activity is too challenging for them and they don’t know how to ask for help? Additionally, can the child recover from heightened emotions such as anger or frustration, in an appropriate manner and time frame> All of these situations refer to emotional regulation skills and need to be developed for a successful transition to school. 

Lastly, let’s talk about our child’s ability to cope with and manage transitions themselves. The transition to school is a big one, but along with this there are many other smaller transitions to consider. These transitions begin early in the day from waking up and getting ready for school, to leaving home for school, being in the playground with friends, moving into the classroom for morning period, and so on and so forth throughout the day with lunch break, home time, ect. School days are very routine and structured, and children are expected to learn and follow these routines. Challenges that come with these transitions can be as simple as having to go to the toilet at a set time, rather than just going whenever you need to at home; only having a certain amount of time to eat your lunch; or moving back into the classroom appropriately after an exciting play break. 

Some children may still be having difficulties achieving success or independence in any one or group of these skills. This increases their risk of falling behind their peers and having to play ‘catch up’ or requiring additional support to be put into place to achieve success.  Therefore, it is immensely important that we support these children by actively facilitating the necessary skills for school readiness throughout pre-school.. 

If you’d like to help your child develop their school readiness skills, here are some ideas that you can do at home together. Often the repetition of everyday activities is a simple yet effective helping hand! Practice is key!

  • Encourage your child to open their own snacks and containers.
  • Encourage your child to start drinking out of a water bottle.
  • Encourage your child to be responsible for their own items, packing them, and then packing them away. 
  • Follow a morning and evening routine to support your child’s ability to understand and follow structures. This can be supported by the use of a visual schedule of ordered pictures of each step that needs to be performed. 
  • Support transitions within the home with the use of a visual and/or auditory timer to mimic the bell system used within schools and support your child’s understanding of time, space and transitions. 
  • Practice with your child getting dressed and undressed with their school uniform once you have bought it. 
  • Practice and role-play the drop-off and pick-up routine ahead of time. Also discuss and role-play changes in routine and unexpected events i.e., somebody else picking them up. 
  • Engage your child in arts and craft activities at home. Use pencils, crayons, paints, string and beads, scissors and glue to create masterpieces together. 
  • Encourage your child to participate in colouring in activities, tic-tac, toe, mazes, colouring in, dot to dots, etc. 
  • Engage your child in card and board games that will teach them turn taking, sharing, and problem solving skills. 
  • Play and create obstacle courses within the home to practice your child’s movement and gross motor skills. Include jumping, balancing and hopping. 
  • Teach and expose your child to common group games such as tips, hide and seek, bullrush etc. 
  • Facilitate safe social encounters with similar aged children for your child to practice play and social skills with. 
  • Support your child to identify their emotions and explore and practice different ways to calm their body when in a heightened state of arousal. For example, practice deep breathing, drinking cold water, movement breaks or other tricks that work for them as an individual. 

As Occupational Therapists, we also facilitate the development of all of the aforementioned skills through our one-on-one therapy intervention sessions, home programming and our school holiday ‘BIG School STARS’ transition to school group which Explore and Soar run in the January School Holidays. If you have concerns about any of the skills discussed in this post, just ask your therapist and they can help you best support your child to achieve the success they deserve at big school. We also have a transition to school activity handout on our website, click the link here to view and download it, to help with all the activities ahead over the next couple of months.

By supporting our children to build these foundational skills, we are giving them the tools and skills that they need to not only achieve success at big school, but to have the best time while doing it!

Until next time,
Georgia

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 3, 2021

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Auditory Intervention

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AUDITORY INTERVENTION

As part of working as an occupational therapist, and under sensory processing integration, we work with all of the 8 sensory systems. 

One of these is the auditory system. The auditory system is complex and many other sensory systems are connected to it as a multisensory functioning organ.  

So What is Auditory Processing?  

Auditory processing is the process of recognising and responding to auditory input. Auditory processing refers to the ability to discriminate between similar sounds, tune into a parent, teacher or friend to pick up important information, in order to communicate effectively with others. There are multiple skills linked to auditory processing including memory, sequencing, development of expressive and receptive language, academic skills such as association of sounds with letters or numbers, listening skills, communication skills, social skills, and maintaining attention.  One of the greatest skills needed is the ability to differentiate sounds.  Our ears are developed to interpret the different frequencies of sounds a world presents us. The frequency (Hertz- Hz) of sound is then determined by the way in which sound waves vibrate whilst travelling through our ear. Once sound waves reach our ear, they cause the membranes within to vibrate at varying intensities, causing the activation of certain musculature of the ear, which then allows us to hear!  There are varying frequencies such as:  

Low Frequency sounds (1000 Hz and below): This sound activates the outer ear muscles, moving slow as it passes through. This includes sounds like: 

  • Dog’s barking
  • Lawn mowers
  • Thunder
  • Vacuum cleaners 

Middle Frequency sounds (1000-3000 Hz): This sound activates the middle ear and where language and social skill development is primarily processed.

High Frequency sounds (3000Hz and above): This sound activates our inner ear, moving hard and fast as it passes through. This includes sounds such as: 

  • Women’s voices
  • Birds chirping

Challenges in Auditory Processing

Difficulties arise when the brain does not effectively or accurately interpret and respond to auditory information. This creates misinterpretation of information. 

There are two forms of difficulties with auditory processing: 

Hypersensitivity to sounds (Auditory Defensiveness) 

This is a child who is overwhelmed by auditory input and may present with the following: 

  • Easily distracted by sounds not noticed by others (clocks, fans, air conditioners)
  • Disliking sound of vacuums, hair dryers
  • Startled or distracted by loud or unexpected sounds- running away, crying, covers ears.
  • Frequently attempted to control sounds in their environment (asking people to stop talking)
  • Refusing to go to busy/ noisy places

Hyposensitivity to sounds (Under Registration) 

This is a child who does not easily register auditory information in his environment and may present with the following:

  • Does not respond to verbal cues or own name
  • Loves loud music or TV
  • Loves to make sounds or noises
  • Difficulty understanding or remembering what was said
  • Talks to self when completing a task
  • Needing directions repeated

At Explore and Soar, we are dedicated to understanding these sensory systems, determining ways to integrate and apply intervention approaches that alleviate these concerns. To do so, we engage in continued professional development and collaborative reasoning sessions with our senior OT’s.

There are many auditory interventions that can be supplemented into your sensory diet or OT home programming routine, presently at Explore and Soar, we utilise two intervention types; Therapeutic Listening and Quickshifts. In addition to these we have other auditory training and supports, which are tailored to each individual client where appropriate. 

Contact our OT’s to find out more information or  to see how we can help you. We will tailor an appropriate auditory intervention solution for your child. 

From a personal perspective, when I’m feeling like my mind is scattered or overwhelmed, I put on one of our quickshifts that emphasise the lower frequency sounds in order to ground me, to feel safe and to slow my heartbeat.

If I’m feeling slow, I’ll put on a track with shifts of high and low tones, and varying rhythms to invite movement to my muscles to activate and boost my energy levels to get going. 

When i’m really needing to concentrate and get work done, i’ll put on music with a constant rhythmic sound, that holds my attention in one space, it provides intensity with high and low sounds, with a fast but constant and non changing rhythm to allow my body to sync with the music and work to that speed. 

Our families at Explore and Soar know we love to put on music in sessions to add as much support to our kids intervention as possible. Whether it be through speakers or headphones, the impacts to the child’s regulation, engagement, social skills and communication is amazing to see. Some examples of these include:

Child one: A young boy who has high levels of energy. One of his biggest challenges was sharing space, regulation and holding attention to share engagement for more than 5 minutes. When putting on the QS space, you could instantly see the change in his body. He slowed his body and movements, he took a deep breath and paused. The music gave him time and space, it give him the support he needed, prompting safety and regulation. 

Child two: An overwhelmed child. He has challenges moving and communicating with others around him, to follow the lead of others, to transition between environments and settle enough for sleep. With persistence, through each day of our 5 day intensives, little by little, the boy that started the week was a completely different child by the end of the week. He stayed in the room for the whole 50 minutes, he could regulate and move through the changing of ideas, he shared eye contact, laughs and we beautifully transitioned out of the session with no crying or frustrations. 

Child three: With a confident personality, she loves to be in control of the things around her. She does so with constant attempts to change the activities that are new or tricky, tensing her body to try and stabilise movement or completely avoiding an activity all together if it means using both sides of her body together. Music had an instant effect on her body. She began to use both her left and right hand together during sit down fine motor tasks. The music prompted a huge smile and by moving with the rhythm of the music, she gracefully challenged herself throughout the activities.

Auditory processing is such an integral part of development. If you think your child may need some auditory interventions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and see how we can help!

Until next time,
Maddie

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

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Self Care

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SELF CARE

Self care is something we all do everyday. It includes activities which contribute to our basic needs, such as dressing, showering, going to the bathroom, brushing our teeth, sleeping and eating. 

As occupational therapists, we often refer to self-care skills as activities of daily living (ADLs) and it is an important milestone for children to develop. At Explore and Soar, our goal is to practice and strengthen skill development (at an age appropriate level) to enable independence in self care for all of our clients and therefore reducing stress on our parents and families. For many of us, these skills come naturally. However for many children, many of these tasks are complex and require high cognitive, sensory and physical capacity. This can cause challenges in getting ready in the morning, attending to hygiene or getting ready for bed at the end of the day.

Foundationally, self-care involves multiple complex skills including bilateral integration (the ability to coordinate both sides of our body), motor planning, balance, postural control and core strength. 

Additionally, higher executive functions are also important, such as sequencing, organisation and planning. It further involves our biological rhythms, being able to register when we need to toilet, hungry or full, and our sleep/wake cycle. Children with sensory processing challenges can have increased difficulty understanding where their body is in space, or be overly sensitive to textures on their skin or in their mouth. This can make tasks such as dressing, brushing hair and feeding particularly challenging and children can become avoidant.

We provide sensory diet strategies or sensory snacks to support our families in promoting self-care independence for our children. 

These can include auditory interventions through specialised music to help motivate, regulate, activate muscle tone and shift our brains into an optimal state to complete tasks. We also use strategies such as therapressure brushing and deep pressure to support regulation and internal grounding. Additionally, we think about what helps them to get moving in the morning, which may include heavy work activities or just jumping on the trampoline for 10 minutes to activate their body and sensory systems. Explore and Soar value multidisciplinary involvement and we often refer to chiropractic intervention to support biological rhythms.

Many of our referrals at Explore and Soar involve challenges in following routines and getting out the door of a morning. 

The morning routine involves multiple self care tasks. Planning outfits, dressing, brushing hair, preparing and eating breakfast, brushing teeth and packing school bags are common tasks necessary for children to complete before leaving the house. 

So often, children can find it difficult to remember and follow the routine in a timely manner, which can in turn cause stress on parents and family members. Occupational therapists can intervene by implementing the use of visual schedules and visual timers. Visuals are a great way for kids to see what step comes next and therefore support their independence and responsibility in self-care. The use of a visual timer can support their capacity to understand and stick to the expectations and can also incorporate a fun challenge for them to complete a task within a certain timeframe. Consideration of how our children learn and understanding their needs is important, whether using pictures, a list, or breaking each task down into smaller steps.

To help understand the complexity of self-care tasks, let’s break down the skill acquisition of dressing. This includes:

  • Higher executive functions: Before they even begin the task, organising and planning appropriate clothes is needed. Further, sequencing is required to move through each step of dressing in a timely manner.
  • Bilateral coordination: The use of both sides of the body working together to put on clothes, complete zippers, buttons and shoelaces.
  • Spatial and body awareness: understanding where our body is in space is important when putting arms through sleeves, legs through pants and pulling a shirt over our head.
  • Fine motor skills: utilised to complete zippers, buttons, shoelaces and putting on shoes and socks.
  • Trunk rotation: Being able to twist the body to put arms through sleeves of a jacket or shirt.
  • Hand eye coordination: controlling our arms and legs in relation to what our visual system is telling us.
  • Motor planning: Dressing requires coordination of both sides and our upper and lower body together, as well as executing motor movements. It also involves activating core strength, muscle tone and postural integrity to control our body. We have recently written about motor planning and the aspects involved.
  • Balance and core strength: Required when lifting one leg at a time to dress lower body.

If a child lacks competence in one or more of these areas, the dressing process will be more difficult, time consuming, and their capacity to achieve independence will be reduced. At Explore and Soar, when we assess clients, we make observations of these skills and then utilise play to develop and build on them in our sessions and home programs.

If you think your child may need some assistance with developing self care skills, please don’t hesitate to reach out and get in contact with us. Whether you’re a new or existing client, we can help!

Until next time,
Hannah

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AUGUST 4, 2021

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