Occupational therapists assist neurodiverse children in acquiring essential self-care skills such as dressing, grooming, feeding, and using the toilet. Moreover, they also work on promoting independence and building routines that empower children to perform these tasks efficiently and with confidence. Most children eventually want to try out acts of independence, including everything from making their own sandwich to riding bikes on their own. The professionals at EAS note that your child’s strong desire to “do it myself” is natural and even vital to her development.
Self-help skills enable your child to meet his own needs and involve activities and behaviors that eventually lead to independence. Skills such as dressing on his own, learning how to set a table or pouring his own juice express growing maturity. However, self-help skills also involve emotional and cognitive growth, such as learning to express anger with words rather than throwing a toy, respecting property of others and someday reading a book without your help.
The purpose of ADL training is twofold One is to remediation of identified deficits and second is compensatory techniques to safely accomplish the task.
