Does your pre-school age child need OT?
Please complete this brief checklist if you have concerns in regards to your pre-school age child’s development.
Fine Motor
- Immature drawing skills
- Dislikes and avoids fine motor and table top activities
- Immature pencil grip
- Unable to write own name
- Poor scissor skills
- Generally poor performance at fine manipulative tasks
- Difficulty learning new fine motor tasks
- Tires easily when performing fine motor tasks, particularly pencil skills
Gross Motor
- Trips over a lot
- No sense of danger or scared of heights
- “Accident prone” – always bumping into things
- Appears floppy and awkward when performing movement activities
- Poor balance
- Problems learning new motor tasks (often dislikes outdoor activities)
Visual Perception
- Lacks concentration with visual tasks
- Difficulties with puzzles and block designs
- Difficulty with finding images in picture books
- Poor visual memory
Behavioural
- Poor self esteem
- Poor concentration
- Disorganised
- Does not mix well with peers – often prefers playing with younger children
- Immature social behaviour
- Aggressive / shy and timid/ disruptive behaviour at school
- Unable to sit for group activities or story time
- Difficulty sitting still during structured activities
Self Care
- Difficulties dressing self
- Cannot use appropriate utensils to feed self
- Messy eater
- Dependent on others to assist with self care tasks at an age older than normal
- Slow to perform all self care tasks
If you ticked some of the boxes above an Occupational Therapy Assessment is recommended as Occupational Therapy can assist development of these skills. Bring a copy of this checklist to your assessment.